


Taking the Initiative

by crackleviolet



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bit of everything, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, even a harry potter au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 14:50:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 57,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1230487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackleviolet/pseuds/crackleviolet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I started writing these when The Avengers was still new. They're old, but it's about time they made the crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beautiful Stranger [Loki]

“Ugh…bastard!”  
  
You slammed your phone shut and stormed into the coffee shop, pulling a twenty out of your pocket with such force that you were somewhat surprised it didn’t rip.   
  
“I’ll have a medium hot chocolate,” you said to the barista, slamming your money onto the counter. “And a chocolate doughnut. A big one.”  
  
Even as you paid for your order you were still seething. The barista passed you your change and your doughnut and went about making your hot chocolate. You took the time to glance around the place while she did so.   
  
From the outside it looked like a very small shop, more counter than anything else, but on the inside it was actually much larger. There were a number of seating areas if required, some of which were occupied, though most of which weren’t.   
  
Your phone buzzed in your pocket, alerting you to a new text message. You let out a lengthy sigh and weighed up the pros and cons before deciding to read it. As you did so another customer approached the counter.   
  
“I’ll have a large cappuccino,” the male customer said, though you were too busy opening your text message to pay any further attention than that.  
  
You groaned as you read the message and wondered why you’d thought it was a good idea, pushing your phone back into your pocket and rubbing your temples. The barista approached the counter with a cup of hot chocolate, decorated with whipped cream and crumbled chocolate.   
  
“Here’s your hot chocolate,” said the barista. “Have a nice day.”  
  
“Thank you,” you said, helping yourself to a mouthful of the whipped cream.  
  
“Rough day?”  
  
You turned to the owner of the voice, looking at the other customer for the first time. The guy who had ordered the cappuccino was tall and slim, with dark hair, pale eyes and a handsome face. He was dressed as if for a business meeting, with a newspaper tucked under his arm and he was smiling at you. His smile was broad and genuine and, though it bordered on a smirk, did not come across as condescending.   
  
You returned the smile.  
  
“I think it’s getting better,” you said.


	2. Surprise [Thor]

You weren’t the sort of person to sit around feeling sorry for yourself or cry. You much preferred to tackle any sort of problem that arrived your way head on and put your mind at ease. Yet there you were, curled up in a heap on your bed, drenching your pillow and bed covers with your tears.   
  
 _Stupid boyfriend_ , was all you could think.  _Stupid Thor._  
  
You and Thor had been an item for over three years and you had to admit it had had its ups and downs. The ups were amazing: strong arms around your waist as he led you out onto the roof of one of the highest towers, the first time he bedded you, the moment you realised you were completely and utterly in love with him. The downs, however, they were terrible. The passion you shared in bed was matched only by the passion with which you argued. The whole of Asgard shook whenever you disagreed.  
  
That was why you were crying.   
  
It was exactly three years since Thor had first expressed any interest in you and you had reciprocated, the closest thing you had to a three year anniversary. You had decided to make plans to celebrate the occasion, though the only one your lover seemed excited about was the one where you crept into his bed and stayed there all day, so in the end that was the one you went for.  
  
You had spent hours deciding which dress to put on and how to pin your hair before you went to Thor’s bed chamber. Thor was hardly gentle with your dresses and more than one of your favourites had met tragic ends as a result of his impatience to get you out of them, but you wanted to look good for him. In the end you decided on a gold number made from spidersilk that was like a second skin and accentuated every curve you had. It was unashamedly sexy and had a halter neck style fastening, leaving your back bare and your breasts teasingly covered.   
  
You’d pinned your hair loosely, knowing full well that you would be spending most of the day wrapped in fur bedclothes and looking utterly dishevelled. You left your own chambers as the clock struck midnight and walked through the deserted corridors, your sandals shattering the silence. The thought alone of what the two of you were about to get up to sent waves of heat coursing through your body.   
  
When you got there, however, Thor was dressed for battle and on his way out. Shadow Ghouls had been spotted in the north and he and a few other warriors were going out to fight them. At first you had been hurt, but that had escalated to angry and Thor had only made it worse by saying he had no idea when he’d be back, as if it didn’t matter either way.  
  
You had both screamed at each other, both said things you probably didn’t mean. In the end you had asked him if he loved killing things more than he loved you and his hesitation was as good as a yes. You had stormed back to your own chambers in tears and he hadn’t followed.  
  
So there you were, sobbing into your pillow and cursing your boyfriend‘s old fashioned ideas of honour. Most of all, however, you cursed yourself for getting to that point in the first place. Thor was going to be King of Asgard one day, you reminded yourself, one day the entire kingdom would be his responsibility.   
  
You realised that you no longer knew if you were crying because you were angry at Thor or because you were angry with yourself. You told yourself that the second he returned you’d run into his arms and beg for his forgiveness.  
  
And that’s when someone came knocking at your door.  
  
You sat up and climbed off the bed, wiping your eyes as you did so. Maybe Frigga had heard about your argument and come to offer you some advice. You gripped the handle and pulled open the door.  
  
He was no longer wearing his battle garments and Mjolnir was nowhere to be seen but Thor, your Thor, stood in the doorway. Your eyes blurred with more tears and you threw yourself against him, pressing your head against his chest and sobbing.  
  
“I’m sorry, my love,” you wept, listening to the sound of his heart beating through the fabric of his shirt. “I should know better than to-”  
  
“Sssssssh,” he soothed, stroking his fingers through your hair. “It’s all right, little bird. I should appreciate you more.”  
  
Thor had  _never_  called you ‘little bird’ before but you weren’t complaining. You had expected him to be angry. Usually after the two of you fought he’d avoid you for a while and then find you when he was ready to have the last word. ‘The last word’, of course, usually ended up being sex.  
  
You stared up into his eyes with your own tear-filled ones. They looked so different in the half light, as if they were a pale green, rather than blue. He half smiled before brushing his lips against yours, worlds away from his usual hungry kisses.  
  
“I don’t understand,” you said as he stroked his thumb against your jawline. “What about the Shadow Ghouls?”  
  
“I have a capable team,” was his response, stepping forward into your room. “Would you rather I went with them?”  
  
“Of course not,” you said, closing your bedroom door. “It’s just-”  
  
Suddenly you didn’t know what to say. How could you tell him that this sudden considerate behaviour was, frankly, bizarre? That you were confused by his gesture rather than grateful of it?   
  
Instead of saying anything you wrapped your arms around his neck.  
  
“I’m just really happy you’re here,” you said, standing up onto your tiptoes to kiss him. He happily returned it before trailing soft kisses along the areas of your face still damp from tears.  
  
“Have I ever told you,” he whispered, enveloping your hands in his, “how beautiful you are?”  
  
You shook your head.  
  
“Mores the pity,” he said stroked his thumb across yours. “I suppose I had better make up for that tonight.”  
  
Seconds later his lips were on yours, his hands wandering south. He pushed you up against your bedroom wall and slipped his hands around your legs, lifting them from the floor and wrapping them round his firm body.   
  
“Thor,” you moaned into the kisses. “Thor, I love you.”  
  
This seemed to displease him, for he broke the kiss and left you pining for his lips again.   
  
“No, little bird,” he said. “Thor is unbecoming of me. I should very much prefer ‘Your Highness’.”  
  
“Yes…Your Highness,” you said somewhat hesitantly, waiting for him to laugh and declare it all a joke.  
  
Except he didn’t. Instead, he pulled you away from the wall and threw you onto your bed. You shrieked as your face made contact with the pillows and turned to your lover, heart racing. He stood at the edge of your bed, unbuttoning his shirt and you climbed up onto your knees to help. He watched as your nimble fingers made short work of the buttons, tracing the tips of his own along yours as you worked.   
  
He threw his shirt to the floor when you finished and you planted a kiss on his bare stomach, earning a heady moan from him in response. You placed another one a couple of millimeters further up, followed by another and another until you reached his chest.   
  
His chest was your favourite part of him, though you had never told him so in all of the three years you had spent together. It was solid as a rock and impenetrable in battle, yet made the softest pillow when you crawled into bed beside him. Not to mention that beating inside it was one of the two organs he had reserved solely for you all of that time ago.  
  
You left a long, lingering kiss on the center of his chest, feeling his heartbeat drum against your lips in a quickening crescendo.   
  
“Do that again, little bird,” he said and you were only to happy to oblige.  
  
Your body was close against his and you knew his pants were getting tight. You knew he expected you to take your lips back to the source of his need and suck him dry, so you did exactly the opposite. You moved your lips across from his chest and around his right nipple, before trailing up his neck and up to his earlobe. He reached up and loosened the straps of your dress, watching in awe as it fell to your knees. You had deliberately gone commando for the occasion and it was starting to seem like a good decision; Thor was looking at your body like it was the first time he had ever seen it.   
  
“My, but you’re beautiful,” he murmured and you could see the lust in his eyes. “I could love you so much better than this, better than…”  
  
He shook his head as if in an attempt to shake off whatever was on his mind and pushed his mouth on yours, squeezing your breast when you were least expecting it. You gasped from the sensation and he took the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth.   
  
 _You sneaky little…_ You thought as he traced one of his fingers around your nipple.  _That’s just asking for payback._  
  
You reached for the top of his trousers and slipped your hand inside, taking hold of his erection and gripping it tightly. Thor froze and you knew you had him.  
  
You grinned mischievously and let go of him for a few seconds, taking hold of his shoulders instead and dragging him down onto the bed next to you. While he attempted to regain his balance you took the opportunity to straddle him and kick your dress to the floor.  
  
“What’s the matter, love?” You said, grinning down at him. “Cat got your tongue?”  
  
He didn’t respond so you ground against the lump in his trousers and, just as planned, he clenched hold of the bed covers and inhaled sharply. You decided that you liked seeing him submit to you, even if you could tell by the look in his eyes that you’d pay for it later.  
  
You took hold of his trousers and pulled them off, feeling yourself blush at the sight of his enormous package. You didn’t know why you felt so girlish and innocent all of a sudden as it was hardly your first time in bed together; even when it  _was_  your first time you hadn’t blushed.  
  
“Well what have we here?” You asked, leaning over and slipping your tongue over his navel. You completely ignored his erection, even as it pulsed against your neck. Instead you glanced up, made eye contact with your blonde lover and kissed the area of his stomach just below his navel, where the fair hair that coated his body started to get coarser.   
  
“What’s this?” You said, planting another kiss slightly lower while still ignoring the prominent organ before you.   
  
Thor was never one for foreplay and, as expected, was about to lose it. Your close proximity to the source of his need was torture enough, but the fact that you were completely ignoring it was driving him insane. His breathing was heavy, his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth slightly open in a delicious display of lust.   
  
You reached out and cupped one of his balls, giving it a gentle squeeze as you kissed his stomach again. You were a matter of millimeters from the base of his length and the anticipation was so intense that it was making your lover tremble.  
  
“My, my,” you whispered, sucking at the patch of skin and relishing every noise the man beneath you made. “I wonder what I should do now.”  
  
Thor exhaled noisily and ran his fingers through your hair.   
  
“Pl…”  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“Pl..ease…”  
  
You raised an eyebrow. Now  _this_  was payback.  
  
“Please what?”  
  
Thor looked you in the eyes briefly before squeezing his own shut again.  
  
“Please…little bird…I  _beg of you_ …”  
  
Without further ado you slid your tongue along the veins of his erection, feeling your stomach flutter at the sounds of pleasure he produced. At first you only slid your tongue around the sides, but eventually you felt you had teased him enough and wrapped your lips around the very tip. He howled with pleasure and bucked his hips as soon as you did so.  
  
You took his length into your mouth slowly at first, without a regular rhythm, but picked up the pace as he demanded it. And oh, demand it he did, first by bucking his hips, then by holding your hair and, when all else failed, by straightforward speech. You could tell when his climax was approaching for his pleas became more frantic. Seconds before he came, he grabbed hold of your head and held you in place, groaning as his sweet release came and filled your mouth. Even you had to admit that it had never tasted so good before.  
  
It took Thor a while to regain his breath, but when he did he grabbed hold of your shoulders and laid you beside him so that you were side by side. You had reached that deeply sexy couple of seconds between foreplay and sex and the heat coursing through your core had never been so intense before - you felt as if you might boil over at any second. You had been preparing for this moment for so long and yet something about it didn’t quite feel right.  
  
That’s when you remembered the wine.   
  
Saccharine wine was something of a delicacy in Asgard, known for its intensely sweet taste and delicate red colour. Saccharine wine was special, for the berries that went into it continued to ripen even as they formed the wine, meaning that as time went by the wine got sweeter and more luxurious. It was said that after exactly three years the wine was at its best, but any later and it was like vinegar.  
  
Just before your first night with Thor you had bought two freshly made bottles. The first was emptied almost immediately the first time he took you to bed but you saved the second in the hopes that in three years you would still be together to enjoy it. You had kept that promise to yourself and, when you went to Thor’s room earlier on, had taken the bottle of wine with you. The second you had started arguing with him you had put it on one of his bedroom cabinets and you were suddenly absolutely certain that you had left it there.   
  
Under any other circumstances you probably would have left it and saved it for a different day, but you had always wondered if the stories about saccharine wine were true. Not only that, but two bottles of the stuff had set you back quite a lot of money at the time and you would never forgive yourself if one went to waste.  
  
You turned to Thor and kissed him full on the lips before getting off the bed, picking your dress up from the bedroom floor. Your lover watched you in confusion.  
  
“W-What are you-” he began to ask as you pulled your dress back on and tidied up your hair.   
  
You turned to him and smiled.  
  
“I’ve been saving a bottle of saccharine wine for today.”  
  
He pouted before sinking back into the pillows.  
  
“Make it quick,” he said, the pout making its way into his voice. You presumed that was as close to affirmation as you were going to get.  
  
The corridors were still silent as you left your room and hurried through the darkness to Thor’s room. You thought of the stern punishment you would receive for teasing him so terribly and then leaving and your stomach fluttered in anticipation. You weren’t going to be able to walk for several weeks but you couldn’t wait.  
  
You stepped inside Thor’s room without bothering to knock and grinned when you spotted the familiar bottle, a grin that vanished almost immediately when you noticed that it was half empty. How on earth had that happened? You had left it not long beforehand and nobody had had reason to enter the room since.   
  
You lifted the bottle and sniffed the fluid inside, just to verify that it was indeed your saccharine wine. The fluid inside smelled sweeter than nectar, honey or any man made sugar and it was intensely difficult to restrain yourself from taking a sip of it there and then.  
  
Just behind you somebody belched loudly and you jumped with such force that you dropped the bottle to the floor, watching forlornly as it smashed to innumerable pieces. You grabbed one of the shards of glass and turned to face your assailant, if that was what you could call them.  
  
Thor’s bed was a little way behind you and you saw that there was someone wrapped inside the furs, surrounded by half filled goblets of wine. It was a terrible dishonour to defile an Odinson’s room in such a manner and you took hold of the corner of the furs with one hand, intending to scold whoever it was with the full force of whatever authority you had.   
  
This all changed, of course, when you actually did pull them back and saw the face of the person in the bed. He was still wearing his battle clothes and had Mjolnir in his arms, but it was unmistakeably Thor. He groaned as the cold air hit his body.  
  
“Wh…How did you get there?” You asked. You knew the castle corridors like the back of your hand and had made the journey to Thor’s chambers more times than you wished to count. The chances of him getting there before you having set off after you were unlikely at best.  
  
“What are you talking about, woman?” He growled, the alcohol slurring his words. “I’ve been here the whole time.”  
  
Your blood ran cold.  
  
“The…whole…time?”  
  
“Aye. Turns out there wasn’t any Shadow Ghouls, just somebody’s idea of a prank.”  
  
Thor’s seed was still on your tongue and, just like the saccharine wine, suddenly it didn’t taste so sweet anymore. You felt sick to your stomach and fell to your knees.  
  
“But if you’re here…”  
  
You glanced out of the open doorway, which all of a sudden looked ready to swallow you whole.  
  
“…who’s in  _my_  room?”  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picture is relevant: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3zufy28Ft1qgnjrx.gif


	3. O Captain, my Captain [Steve]

For the fifth time that week you were working late at SHIELD HQ. Ever since the incident with the Tesseract there had been so much to do - paperwork to fill out, families to console, debris to clear - and it didn’t help matters that half of SHIELD’s manpower was badly injured, dead or worse. Even you had not escaped the carnage and had been injured saving civilians from falling wreckage, earning yourself a three day coma and broken wrist for your efforts.   
  
New York was badly damaged by the destruction, though nowhere was as damaged as SHIELD. Everyone knew someone who had died, had been involved in the fighting in some way and the first few months were difficult. There were so many funerals to attend, so many weeping widows to console. Everyone at SHIELD got the blunt end of their grief, their despair that their loved ones had been unprotected at the end.   
  
You had always been welcome in the Coulson household until you went there to offer your condolences. Before the Tesseract incident Coulson’s wife would usher you inside and feed you cupcakes until you couldn’t physically handle any more. Coulson was your mentor and she would tell you how fond he was of you, how much he enjoyed working alongside you. The day of his funeral Coulson’s widow had grabbed hold of you and asked you why you had left him to die, how you could forgive yourself after everything he had done on your behalf. You said nothing. What could you say? You had already asked yourself all of those questions.  
  
You would never have been able to gather the strength to help rebuild SHIELD if it hadn’t been for him.   
  
Alongside Coulson you had visited many superheroes, though none of them caused so much excitement as when you were told that Steve Rogers, Captain America, was next on your list. You were too young to know anything about the man, but Coulson would tell anyone - if they asked or not - that the Captain was his childhood hero. That was part of the reason why Fury never directly assigned him to recruit the Captain to SHIELD. Coulson was far too emotionally vested in the outcome and was likely to make the Captain’s adjustment to modern life far more difficult. Instead he sent you.  
  
Steve was damaged when you met him, a shadow of the man he once was. He wanted nothing more than to be left alone, to turn his back on war forever. You knew it was hard for him to accept that everything and everyone he had known was gone and he had closed his eyes on one war just to wake up in the middle of another.   
  
You never forced him to accept it, introducing him to things a little at a time. Fury often scolded you, telling you you were being too soft on him, but he didn’t see him the same way you did.   
  
Your soft and unimposing approach seemed to have the biggest effect on Steve. You were the only one whose opinion he asked for, the one who convinced him to join the Avengers Initiative. He was always polite to you, even when he disagreed with what you said and, when he learned you had come round from your coma, he visited you in the infirmary and brought you flowers.  
  
In the weeks that followed you seemed to cross paths with Steve a lot. You would go to the coffee machine and he’d be there, looking somewhat bewildered by the dials. You would take some files to Fury’s office and Steve would bump into you on the way. You bumped into him as you left for Coulson’s funeral and he went as your guest.  
  
As his coffin was lowered into the ground, you gave Coulson one final military salute and bit back the tears. You knew Steve was saluting him too and that was almost too much for you to bear. You remembered the way he had stuffed your pockets full of Captain America paraphernalia the day you first met Steve and the stern way you had given them back to him. You listened to the preacher’s last words, thinking that if you could just have your dorky mentor back you’d chain Steve to a chair and make him sign everything.  
  
You were so numb that day you didn’t even notice that after Steve saluted Coulson he reached out and took your hand.  
  
That evening he took you to the warehouse where you had visited him before the Tesseract incident. He told you there was something there he needed to show you and you went along out of the knowledge that Fury would chew your ear off if you neglected your SHIELD duties.  
  
The warehouse was just the same as it was before and, as Steve took your coat, you wondered what he could possibly have to show you. You were even more confused when he started to wrap straps around your hands and pointed you in the direction of his punching bag.   
  
“Uh…Steve…I’m grateful and everything, but I don’t see the point of this,” you had said, staring from your hands to the punching bag and back again.  
  
Steve stood right behind you and wrapped his arms around yours. He leaned down so that he was a matter of inches from your ear.  
  
“Cut the bullcrap [First Name],” he whispered. “We both know you’re not dealing with this.”  
  
He stepped away from you and you shuddered as the heat from his body left yours. You had no idea what he meant - if anything you were sure that you were dealing wonderfully. You had gone straight back to work after the incident, gotten so much organised and recovered from your own injuries in record time.  
  
You shrugged and stepped over to the punching bag, laying a single punch on it and glancing back at Steve. He gave you the thumbs up and motioned for you to do it again.  
  
 **WHACK**  
  
You thought back to Agent Coulson’s last words to you. That you were possibly the best subordinate he had and he was proud of you.   
  
 **WHACK**  
  
You remembered drawing your gun on Loki and the sneers you gained in response.  
  
 **WHACK**  
  
You remembered refusing pain killers for the headaches you suffered from while your head injury healed. The pain was proof you were alive, after all.   
  
 **WHACK**  
  
You remembered the whispers from other members of SHIELD when they saw you return to work with your arm still in a sling. You pretended not to care, told yourself you didn’t care what they thought. They couldn’t say you were weak and that was the main thing.  
  
 **WHACK**  
  
But you  _were_  weak and that was the problem.  
  
You didn’t know when the hot tears began to fall, only that all of a sudden the punching bag was proof of your weakness and you threw as many punches at it as you could, over and over until your knees fell from under you. All of the emotions you had bottled up and bit back erupted at that instant and took over you. You couldn’t stand, you could hardly breathe and all you could do was cry.  
  
Steve sat next to you and wrapped his arm around your shoulders, easing your head onto his shoulder. He didn’t say anything for a long time, but you knew what he was thinking. You had been so busy helping rebuild SHIELD that you hadn’t grieved for any of your colleagues, so busy ‘coping’ that somewhere along the line you had forgotten what it was you were coping with.  
  
The sobs receded eventually and you wiped the tears from your eyes.  
  
“Does it ever stop hurting?” You asked, reaching into your pocket for a tissue.   
  
“No,” was his reply. “It just gets easier.”  
  
You smiled weakly and he returned it, looking directly into your eyes.   
  
Things weren’t the same between you after that.  
  
And so it was that you were working late for the fifth time in a row, not because you had anything to prove, but because your boyfriend offered to keep you company in the near deserted HQ. There was nothing quite so adorable as the sight of him asleep on the other side of your desk.


	4. 3am [Clint]

It was 3am and, all things considered, you should have been asleep. You had been busy all day carrying heavy boxes back and forth from one office to another at HQ, followed by a long session of taking new recruits on a tour of the base. You ordinarily wouldn’t have minded the grunt work, but you weren’t exactly a regular SHIELD lackey - you were a sniper and a damned good one at that. On your best days you could give Agent Barton a run for his money on the ‘Hawkeye’ title.  
  
Speaking of which…  
  
Agent Barton  _was_  asleep. More specifically, he was fast asleep with his head on your chest and his mouth wide open, drooling all over your breasts each time he exhaled. He had been determined to cheer you up after your lousy day, running you a hot bath and offering you a massage when you were done.  
  
You really should have guessed that the massage he was offering didn’t involve his hands, but by the time you realised you were too busy yelling with pleasure that you couldn’t give a crap either way. You had no idea where Clint had learned to be such a satisfying lover, but you often thought that if you ever met his teacher you would shake her by the hand and thank her for all of her good work.  
  
You couldn’t help but think it was terribly unfair that he got to sleep so easily and the temptation to poke him had never been so great. You lifted a single hand to shake him a little but froze halfway, eventually giving up in favour of gently draping it across his bare shoulders. Clint was just too damned adorable while he was asleep. You'd always thought so, even before you shared a bed.  
  
You tried counting sheep, going over everything you had to do the next day, everything you had done that day, searching your brain for the names of the new recruits you had taken around the base, but nothing worked. You remained as wide awake as ever. Even when you did manage to close your eyes and drift off, you woke up again only to find that mere minutes had passed since the last time you looked at the clock.  
  
You sighed as the time on your digital clock changed to 03:09, meaning that only ten minutes had passed. You moved your hand from across Clint’s shoulders, bringing it up so that you could ruffle your fingers through his hair.  
  
“Sorry about this,” you muttered, before stretching up both your arms in a mock yawn. As you brought them down again, you slapped Clint on the arm.  
  
He was awake within seconds, wide eyed and completely disorientated, reaching out for his arrows and looking completely confused when he realised he was naked and they were nowhere to be found. You sat up and wrapped your arms around his waist, leaning your head against his shoulder.  
  
“I’m sorry, baby, did I wake you?” You asked.  
  
Clint took in the bedroom, the disheveled clothes on the floor and the smell of sex on the air and remembered what had happened. He kissed you on the forehead and breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
“No, just a bad dream,” he said, running his fingers over the part of his arm where you’d slapped him and wincing. “Felt real though.”  
  
“Would you like me to kiss it better?” You asked, leaning over and pretending to examine his arm.  
  
Clint shook his head and pushed you back onto the bed, crushing his lips against yours. You combed your fingers through his hair and wrapped your legs around his body.  
  
“There is  _something_  you could do,” he said in a husky voice, a particularly solid part of his anatomy brushing against your entrance.   
  
It was past 3am and, all things considered, you really should have been asleep.  
  
However, now that your boyfriend was awake, you had a funny feeling that sleep wasn’t on the agenda at all.


	5. Hot For Teacher [Bruce]

“What do you think of this one?” You asked, stepping out of the bathroom and turning a miniature pirouette for your room mate. You had on a black and white summer dress and wedge heels and, though you would never say so out loud for fear of sounding obnoxious, thought you looked incredible.   
  
Your bedroom curtains were drawn and you sighed when you saw your room mate was still in bed, her red curls tousled across the pillow.  
  
“I think it’s six in the morning, [First Name],” she slurred.   
  
You pouted and glanced at your reflection in the full length mirror you shared, smoothing your hands along the material and checking the side view.   
  
 _Perfect._  
  
You turned to find a puffy eyed Natasha nodding her approval.   
  
“What’s all the fuss, anyway?” She said, turning over onto her side so that she faced the wall. “I thought you weren’t having any more Physics classes this semester.”  
  
“I’m not,” was your response as you put on a necklace. “Today we find out the class listings for Advanced Physics.”  
  
You opened one of your bedroom drawers and pulled out a heavy tome that you’d taken out of the library a couple of weeks beforehand for further reading. It wasn’t on the set list but you had been told there was an interesting article in there on the topic of giant monopole resonance in isotopes and you hadn’t been disappointed.   
  
As far as students went you liked to think you were above average. Your test scores were always high, you always handed in your homework on time and you usually read ahead so you knew the answers in class. Physics finals were over and most of the other students in your class had already gone home for vacation; there was no need for you to still be around, yet there you were, checking everything out as if it was your first week.  
  
Everyone who studied at the ACA [short for Avengers College of America] had above average grades and a good percentage of the student populous usually ended up working for the White House. Having ACA on your résumé was as good as having a thumbs up from the President himself and so, naturally, it was incredibly difficult to get a place there.   
  
The ACA physics course was supposedly one of the best in the world and very few candidates got through the first year, let alone to study Advanced Physics, so you felt obligated to keep up with the reading, even when none had been set. Nuclear Physics, which you were particularly interested in, was constantly the topic of science journals and pamphlets and you learned right at the beginning of the term that it was always good to stay in touch with what people were saying on the subject, as it usually gained you bonus points when you brought it up in essays.  
  
The campus library was open 24/7 and you’d be able to return the book you already had in exchange for another one and read relatively uninterrupted until 9am, when the class listings went up. You had no doubts that you would get in, yet still you were nervous. There was still a chance that everything you had worked for would be for nothing.  
  
“I’m going out,” you said, slipping the book into your bag and pulling on a light cardigan. “Probably be back for dinner.”  
  
Natasha waved haphazardly as you walked out of the door.   
  
The close proximity to vacation meant that the campus was practically deserted. At the beginning of the semester the streets had been bustling with people but now it was like a ghost town and you arrived at the library within a matter of minutes.   
  
If you thought the streets were deserted that was nothing compared to library. It was something of a social spot during term time, the one place on campus everyone knew the location of no matter what they studied, so it was usually never empty. On this occasion, however, the comfy chairs and coffee tables were bare and the only thing missing was a patch of tumbleweed.   
  
The Nuclear Physics section was on the third floor and you took the stairs, taking the thick book out of your bag and positioning it in your arms seconds before you walked through the double doors.   
  
You didn’t turn to see if  _he_  was sitting in his usual comfy chair, with the pile of books he’d picked at random. You pretended you didn’t notice there was anyone else on the third floor at all and walked straight over to the automated book return machine, slipping your student card inside and acting completely nonchalant.  
  
“Hey, [First Name]!”  
  
You turned to the owner of the voice and feigned surprise.   
  
“Professor Banner!” You said, clapping your hand against your heart and gasping. “I didn’t see you there!”  
  
Professor Banner was one of the two Professors at the ACA who taught Advanced Physics and to say you were a fan of his was putting the term mildly. Frankly, you were  _obsessed_  with the man and had been from the moment you met him.  
  
It was hard to pin down exactly why you liked him so much. You loved his passion for the subject matter and the way he was never patronising to any student who didn’t quite understand after the first explanation. You could spend hours just looking at his hands and the way he rubbed the bridge of his nose when he bordered on tired.  
  
Professor Banner and the other Advanced Physics teacher, Professor Stark, sometimes dropped in for guest lectures and you always enjoyed them more than your regular classes. Professor Banner would fill all four corners of the board with his squiggly handwriting, bending over to get right into the corners. If anyone had told you before you enrolled that one of the highlights of your Physics studies would be rushing into the lecture theatre to ensure you got a prime view of your Professor’s ass you would have laughed until you died. Honestly? Until Professor Banner came along you hadn’t known that Nuclear Physicists could have such great asses.  
  
You had known one thing for certain from day one of meeting Professor Banner. You would get into Advanced Physics no matter how hard you had to work or how many books you had to read. If that was what it took to see him every day in class and have a valid reason to visit him in his office, then so be it. Up until that point you had had to be creative.   
  
All of your hard work would prove fruitless if you ended up in the second Advanced Physics class taught by Professor Stark, of course, though you told yourself over and over that that would never happen.  
  
You pushed your book into the machine and waited for a receipt before heading over to Professor Banner’s table. He always sat at the same one before classes started and, even though you knew Advanced Physics classes were over for the semester, he still seemed to be in the middle of lesson planning. You wondered if he was planning the lessons for the next term and your heart skipped a beat when you considered that those could be your classes.   
  
“Giant monopole resonance?” Professor Banner questioned and your stomach fluttered. “What did you think of it?”  
  
You took a seat across from him and neatly crossed your legs. He must have watched you walk in and seen the book in your hands. Naturally he was the one who had recommended you read it in the first place.  
  
“Interesting,” you admitted, glancing at his tie and lapsing into fantasies where he used it to bind your hands. You crossed and uncrossed your legs. “It was very different to the last one.”  
  
“A little variation’s never a bad thing,” said Professor Banner, in a tone that sent shivers up your spine. You reached into your bag to put your student card away and you blushed as his eyes skimmed the low neckline of your dress. “I didn’t think I’d see you today.”  
  
You unconsciously clenched your thighs together at the knowledge that he had thought of you.  
  
“I wanted to see the class listings before I left,” you said, scanning the books he had arranged across the table. It was almost as if he had deliberately picked the heaviest ones with the tattiest covers to make a statement.  
  
 _Or…_  
  
Professor Banner rose to his feet and you gasped as he kicked the tower of books over. You backed into your chair, wondering what the hell had gotten into him and outright stared at his hand when he held it out to you. After careful (well, okay, not so careful) consideration you took it.  
  
“You’ve been a real bad girl, [First Name],” he growled, pulling you into his chest like you were weightless. “I’m going to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.”  
  
“Profes-” You began, intending to ask him what you had done that was so bad, but you found your words muffled by his mouth on yours. He pulled you closer and closer against him, pushing you into the table until you stumbled and ended up splayed across it, paperwork and biros forgotten underneath you.  
  
He only broke the kiss then, standing back to admire the sight of you laid across the table, arms gripping the edges and legs spread to retain your balance. He licked his lips and reached up to loosen his tie.  
  
“Professor Banner, I don’t understand,” you said. “I did all of the reading you told me to.”  
  
He laughed as he pulled the tie loose and leaned across you.  
  
“Really? Reading? You think that’s what this is about?” He asked, reaching for your knuckles and stroking them until you let go of the table edge, giving him the opportunity to tie your wrists together. “You’re badly mistaken.”  
  
He lowered himself onto his knees and wrapped one hand around your ankle, stroking all the way up until he was at your knee. He mimicked the action with his other hand and, when both hands were on your knees, pulled the skirt of your dress all the way up to your chest. You gasped as cold air hit your skin, emphasising the heat that had gathered between your thighs.   
  
“Wow, [First Name],” Professor Banner said, rubbing his finger along your underwear and paying close attention to the thin lining that separated your hot folds from the outside world. “You’re already so wet! You must really want me, huh?”  
  
The feel of his finger so close to your opening was too much for you to handle and you didn’t say anything, which seemed to annoy him, as he dug his finger in and smirked when you gasped.  
  
“You do, don’t you?” He said, pushing your underwear aside and stroking the heated flesh underneath. It felt so good that shudders ran through your entire body, but still you remained speechless. Professor Banner saw this and shrugged.  
  
“Never mind, I’ll get it out of you eventually,” he said, taking hold of your underwear and all but ripping the offending item clean off.   
  
“P-Professor Banner, what about the security cameras?” You managed to muster, your lust-filled tone betraying your words completely.   
  
Professor Banner glanced up at the security cameras that dotted the ceiling at regular intervals, waving at the closest one.  
  
“We’d better make sure we put on a damn good show,” he said, spreading your legs wide.  
  
You started to say something else, but never finished, because seconds later he lowered his head and slipped his tongue around your heated opening, licking up all of the hot juices that had gathered there. You threw your head back and cried out in a mixture of pleasure and surprise at the sensation. You struggled, wanting to deepen the feeling, stroke your fingers through his hair,  _anything_ , but your hands were bound tight and his grip on your legs was tighter.  
  
“You’re such a bad girl,” Professor Banner said, before rubbing the tip of his tongue against your clit. “So  _very_  bad.”  
  
You felt inclined to agree with him as you moaned and pulled your wrists against their bindings. Your walls were already pulsing and that coil you knew so well was growing in the pit of your stomach. It was only a matter of time before he pushed you over the edge and you lost control entirely.  
  
He dug his teeth into your clit right then and you screamed out, cursing how he seemed to be able to read you just like one of the books he’d kicked to the floor. He slipped one finger inside you and then a second, telling you how you were bad and deserved to be punished for your actions. You still had no idea what it was you’d done. Frankly, you didn’t care anymore.  
  
As expected, your orgasm came soon after, flooding you with feelings of pleasure so intense that you were incapable of saying anything coherent or stopping the spasms that racked your body.  
  
“Pr--Professor--”  
  
He stood up and reached for his belt buckle, releasing the catch and then moving lower to his trouser buttons. He dropped his trousers, then his underwear and took hold of his wide erection in one hand. You knew what was next and for a moment you felt as if you couldn’t breathe.   
  
Professor Banner lifted one of your legs over his shoulder and delivered the first thrust. You cried out at the mix of pleasure and pain it induced. You weren’t a blushing virgin, but you were hardly experienced either and the Professor wasn’t going easy on you.  
  
“Would you like to know why it is you’re such a bad girl?” Professor Banner grunted over the sound of flesh hitting flesh, increasing the pace and smirking at the noises you made as a result. You were still recovering from one climax, but already it felt as if you were heading for another.   
  
“Yes, Professor, please…please tell me!” You begged, feeling the coil in your belly twist tighter and tighter with every thrust.   
  
“You’re a bad girl because secretly you  _want_  me to do all of this to you.”  
  
“[First Name]?”  
  
 _Wait…what?_  
  
You blinked, disorientated all of a sudden.   
  
The books were back on the desk, you were sitting in the chair you’d been in right at the start and Professor Banner was fully clothed, sitting across from you and looking rather concerned.  
  
“[First Name], are you all right? You’ve gone very red.”  
  
You’d lapsed into fantasies about the man before, that much went without saying, but compared to the one you had just had everything else seemed tame. And of course it didn’t help that the object of your fantasies was sitting just across from you.  
  
“Oh, sure,” you said, wiping your brow and wincing at how feverish you felt. “I was just thinking about protons and I lost all sense of…what were you saying again?”  
  
If Professor Banner suspected anything he was being incredibly coy. He simply flashed you the simple smile of his that drove you crazy and shook his head.  
  
“Oh, nothing important,” he said. “Listen, [First Name], about the class lists-”  
  
“Hey, lovebirds, there you are!”  
  
You and Professor Banner both turned to see the intruder and you sighed inwardly when you saw who it was. Professor Stark was known as the Playboy Professor, reputed to have slept with half of his students and gotten wasted with the other. He was also the second Professor of Advanced Physics.  
  
It was said that he and Professor Banner had a friendly rivalry that stretched back as far as their own days in college and that they placed bets on whose class would get the best grades at the end of the year. Since Professor Stark only ever picked his students based on looks rather than aptitude, he very often lost and you were determined to uphold that tradition.   
  
“Are you lost, Tony?” joked Professor Banner and you chuckled under your breath.  
  
“Very funny, Bruce. No, I mean it, top quality stuff. Let me know when you’re performing in Vegas, won’t you? I brought the class listings.”  
  
You watched as he handed a sheet of paper over to Professor Banner with two columns on it. Even though you were too far away to see it in detail you knew that that paper held the answer you’d wanted for so long. Professor Stark spotted you looking and flashed you the same grin he flashed all the pretty ladies.  
  
“Oh, and how are  _you_  doing today sweet cheeks? [First Name] [Last Name], right? You‘re not how I pictured you. I thought that when Bruce here told me I could have the best Physics student on campus in my class I thought you‘d have a vitamin deficiency or braces or something. Your loss, Brucie, your loss.”  
  
 _No way._  
  
“[First Name], just let me explain,” said Professor Banner, but you’d snatched the paper before he had time to react. You scanned the names and, sure enough, yours was listed under Stark, not Banner.  
  
Professor Stark folded his arms and leaned over to Professor Banner.  
  
“…I’m not getting it…is she-”  
  
“Tony.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
You placed the sheet of paper back on the table top, a fake smile plastered across your face.  
  
“Well, have you seen the time? I’d better be going. My room mate said she’d make stroganoff tonight and I was supposed to be picking up some salt from the store. See you later.”  
  
You swung your bag over your shoulder and made for the stairs without looking back.  
  
You tried not to think too much into it, told yourself that Professor Banner obviously didn’t appreciate how smart you were, though you couldn’t bring yourself to believe that. Professor Banner had always found articles he thought you’d be interested in and asked what you thought of current issues. If anything, you had thought he liked your brains the most.  
  
It had never occurred to you what might happen if you got into Advanced Physics but not Professor Banner’s class. You had assumed that you would end up in his class if you worked hard enough. Obviously you were wrong.  
  
“[First Name]!”  
  
You had started to descend the stairs and glanced back up to where the voice was coming from. Professor Banner was hurrying to catch up with you.  
  
“[First Name], just wait a second!”  
  
“Professor Banner, did you forget something?” No way were you letting him see how upset you were that you weren’t in his class.  
  
“Listen,” he said when he caught up. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. You’re in Tony’s class, but that’s not a reflection of your talent…”  
  
“Really? Cos I thought it was pretty well known that most of Professor Stark’s students aren’t chosen for their brains.”  
  
Professor Banner looked wounded by your words and you knew you’d struck a nerve.  
  
“Was that true, what he said about you ‘letting him have me’? What did that mean, Professor Banner?” You asked, trying to mask the hurt in your voice. “Aren’t I good enough?”  
  
“No, no, that’s not what it means at all,” was his response, holding his hands up in defence. “It’s true that I asked Tony to put you in his class…but…”  
  
“But?!”  
  
Professor Banner looked really embarrassed all of a sudden. You wondered what the hell he was about to say.  
  
“Well…the thing is…if you were my student I would never be able to ask you out to dinner.”


	6. Uninvited [Loki]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a direct follow up from Chapter 2. I left in the original notes from Luna.

It would be easy to say that things went back to normal after the night with the saccharine wine, that nothing had changed. Thor was hung over for the best part of three days afterward and swore never to drink again, a pledge he kept for all of four hours before proceeding to down the contents of an entire barrel of mead and throw up everywhere. Odin scolded him of course and made him clean the entire throne room as punishment, but he smiled as he did so, as if to say ‘That’s my boy’. He always had a soft spot for his oldest son.  
  
Whispers followed you everywhere you went, the same whispers that had followed you before. Rumours that a date had been set for your wedding and Frigga had brought in a seamstress who specialised in wedding silks.   
  
From an outsider’s perspective nothing had changed at all and for the first time in your life you found yourself wishing you were on the outside. You could see exactly how things  _had_  changed and it frightened you.  
  
That night you had been too frightened to return to your room at first, begging a paralytic Thor to tell you that he was joking and knew a short cut, but even if he had that wouldn’t explain the miracle of how you had left him sober and found him mere minutes later blind drunk. You sat by his bedroom door for so long that when you stood up again your knees were stiff and you flinched as you took each step. It took you a lot longer to return to your room than it had to get to Thor’s and you took a deep breath before you stepped inside.   
  
There was no one there when you returned, just a few creases in your bed sheets to remind you that your moment of weakness didn’t only exist in your mind. The more you looked back on what had happened the more convinced you were that it had been obvious from the start.   
  
The next morning you requested fresh bedding, burned your spidersilk dress and rinsed your mouth out with bottle upon bottle of water. No matter what you did, though, you couldn’t erase it from your memory. Whenever you lowered your head to sleep you could still smell him there, still taste him on the tip of your tongue and you hated yourself for it.   
  
There was only one man in the whole of Asgard who would manipulate an entire situation like that to his benefit and since that night you had been unable to look him in the face. You had avoided Loki and he had made no effort to seek you out.   
  
And yet you found you no longer craved Thor as you used to, no longer woke in the middle of the night with a searing heat between your thighs and need for him. When you kissed him all you could think about was how it might feel to kiss Loki instead. It was betrayal in its simplest form. Those thoughts were unexpected and uninvited but they were not unwanted. They would creep into your head when you weren’t paying attention and cling on for dear life when you tried to get rid of them.   
  
 _I love Thor_ , you would tell yourself.  _This isn’t allowed._  
  
You were determined to put things back the way they were, go back to being Thor’s lover without any hint of feeling for Loki. You bought yourself some brand new dresses, intent on seducing the blonde and making those rumours of a wedding come true, but you found yourself choosing dresses in dark green and gold that would look most striking next to Loki. When you tried on your old dresses all you could think about was the fate your spidersilk one had met.  
  
 _No_ , you reminded yourself every time you remembered how good his hands had felt against your skin.  _No, I love Thor._  
  
There was a part of you that wanted nothing more than to tell Thor everything, especially when he rolled onto his side after lovemaking. You had stroked your finger across his chest so many times, pretending that you were writing the words and knowing deep down that it was the closest you would ever come to telling him the truth. Telling him what had happened would pave the way for too many awkward questions. He was bound to ask why you hadn’t thought something was wrong when you had noticed his behaviour was different and you knew that when he asked you if you’d enjoyed it (as his manly pride would force him to) you wouldn’t be able to lie to him and say no.   
  
You told yourself that if you preoccupied yourself with Thor then eventually you would wonder why it was you ever craved Loki. Whenever you found yourself thinking of green eyes or a soft voice whispering ‘little bird’ in your ear you sought Thor out and kept his company until you were thoroughly convinced that that was what you had wanted all along. As long as he was around you had something to hold onto and keep you stable.   
  
Three months after the incident with the saccharine wine you sat in front of the fireplace with Frigga [1], putting the final touches onto a pair of gloves. Frigga was telling you with a great deal of amusement about some of the things Thor and Loki had gotten up to as children. There seemed to be a lot of instances where Loki used his magic as a distraction to steal Thor’s food from his plate and you wondered if it would surprise her in the slightest to hear that he had gotten so close to stealing you too.  
  
“…And Thor was so angry,” Frigga giggled. “Do you know, he chased Loki all around Asgard with the bone in his hand!”  
  
You yelped as you misjudged your aim and dug the needle straight into your thumb. You sucked at the blood with a glum expression across your face, turning the glove in your hand over and over to check that no blood spots had reached the fabric, while Frigga took your hand and examined the puncture mark.  
  
“[First Name],” she said, the laughter leaving her voice. “Might I ask you something?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“It’s just that…you seem so glum all of a sudden, as if a weight has suddenly been cast on your shoulders. I’m not sure if it is right of me to ask but…is there something bothering you?”  
  
You hadn’t expected that question and it must have been written all the way across your face because Frigga let go of your hand and stroked your shoulder.  
  
“I will listen to your woes, no matter how great or small they are,” she said. “Tell me sweet thing, are you with child?”  
  
Not so long ago you would have been horrified by the thought, but right then you wished that  _was_  the thing troubling you.  
  
“My courses have not stopped, dear lady. Unless my body’s lying to me-”  
  
You stopped mid sentence. That was uncomfortably close to what was actually wrong with you, as your body was the one that reminded you how much you craved Loki. Luckily Frigga didn’t notice and you reached for a nearby goblet of wine.  
  
“Well, I must say I’m surprised. From what I’ve heard you two have hardly spent a night apart in the last three years.”  
  
You couldn’t help but think the wine was a bad idea as you proceeded to spit it out. It was a great honour to be the lover of an Odinson, but you had never talked about it so directly with Frigga before. The two of you barely even spoke about kissing.  
  
“I. Uh. We…I drink the milk of the blood flower after, my lady.”  
  
“Oh, I see,” said Frigga, lifting up her own sewing once more. “Well…don’t tell my husband I said so, but he is planning to have the two of you married as soon as Thor is crowned King, so you need no longer take such precautions. Were it not for the Frost Giants you would be his wife right now, so it would not be such a terrible thing to have several Thorsons [2] running round!”  
  
Once an Asgardian couple had bedded more than once they were informally considered married and most of the same rules applied. The belief was that by accepting a lover into your body you accepted them as a part of your soul too. You and Thor had been lovers for such a long time that all that remained was the ceremony and Asgardian couples never organised their own wedding ceremonies. It had always been only a matter of time before Odin called the two of you before him and the whole of Asgard and declared you man and wife for the world to see.  
  
You had to admit that you had been somewhat suspicious of the elaborate dress Frigga had brought for you to wear that morning for Thor’s crowning ceremony. It had been purest white, made of frost silk if you weren’t mistaken, and you had stepped into the ceremony hall alongside Frigga with a warm smile on your face and wave for any Asgardian that called out your name. You had caught Loki’s eye as you climbed the steps, felt his gaze linger on your skin. You knew he approved and that alone made your stomach flutter.  
  
When Thor emerged to take his crown you could barely breathe. The ceremony hall stretched before you like a gaping set of jaws ready to eat you alive and it took everything you had to stay rooted to the spot. You were almost glad when the Frost Giants appeared and Odin postponed the ceremony. [3]  
  
Odin went to investigate the intrusion with his two sons and when they returned you could tell that something had happened. You knew Thor was incensed by something Odin had said and Frigga didn’t have to be told that Odin was incensed by something Thor had said, so the pair of you decided to sit out the long silence in her quarters. Frigga pointed out that until they had their masculine showdown it was best to stay out of their way and, when they were on good terms again, act as if nothing had happened. You had seen the light of the Bifrost through Frigga’s window and you wondered if he or Odin had travelled somewhere.   
  
You glanced across at Frigga. Other than the fact that she was Odin’s second wife but considered Thor and Loki her own children she was a woman you really knew very little about.   
  
“My lady,” you said. “Before the All-Father did you ever love another man?”  
  
“What a strange question,” she laughed.   
  
“….”  
  
She took in your deadly serious expression and sighed deeply.  
  
“Perhaps when I was much younger,” she admitted. “The heart is capable of loving many, after all.”  
  
You had never thought about it like that before and you were about to ask her something else when a guard entered the room.  
  
“My Queen,” he said, bowing his head to Frigga and then turning to you. “My lady. Our King requests your presence in Lord Odin‘s chambers. There has been an…incident.”  
  
You glanced across at Frigga, she glanced across at you and the pair of you dropped your sewing [4].  
  
Odin’s chambers were not far from Frigga’s, but the journey there seemed to take hours. You wondered if Thor and Odin had finally confronted one another and you hoped they hadn’t gone too far. You knew too well what it was like to argue with Thor and how hot headed he could be. You only hoped that he had not infuriated the All-Father any more than was necessary.  
  
The All-Father’s chambers were silent when you got there and you had an ominous feeling in your gut. The guards shrank back to let you and Frigga inside and you braced yourself for whatever was on the other side, half expecting to find Thor and Odin in the midst of throwing tables and chairs at one another and yelling insults. What you actually found made that look like a naive dream in comparison.  
  
Odin was asleep in bed, looking paler than he had in a long time. Loki sat beside him and Thor was nowhere to be seen. Frigga let out a cry and ran to her husband’s bedside, burying her face in his beard and entwining her fingers in his cold ones. You remained in the doorway, ready to run at any time.   
  
“What happened?”   
  
“He collapsed in the lower chambers. One minute he was perfectly fine and the next…” said Loki, the slightest bit of anguish in his voice. You found that you did not believe him, even though you had not been present.   
  
“Where was Thor while this happened?” you demanded. “Where is he now?”  
  
Loki rose to his feet and approached you, an expression of utmost sympathy across his face. Frigga watched him do so, realisation dawning on her face and mere seconds passed before she was on her feet too.  
  
“It grieves me to say this, more than you can possibly know,” said Loki, reaching out a hand and placing it on your shoulder. You wanted to shrug it off, scream, scratch and bite, but his hand was warm against your skin. “Thor wanted revenge on the Jotuns for what happened this morning. He…decided we should pay a visit to Jotunheim.”  
  
“JOTUNHEIM!?!?” you shrieked. “Not only is it forbidden, it’s madness! Thor  _knows_  that. Why would he-”  
  
You stopped. You knew Thor well enough to understand that neither of those factors meant anything to him on a good day, never mind when he was angry.   
  
“Where is he now?”  
  
“I told the guards to fetch Father just before we left. We never should have reached Jotunheim in the first place, but in the end Father didn’t get to us until it was almost too late. He and Thor…they argued again, worse this time,” said Loki. “Father said Thor was unworthy of Asgard, of being our King and stripped him of his powers. He exiled him to a lower realm in the hopes that he might learn humility.”  
  
Frigga began to sob and you sank to the floor, much like you had the last time you had heard of Thor‘s inopportune absence. You had lost your pillar, your stability, the one thing you had to preoccupy yourself from your uninvited desires.   
  
Loki knelt beside you and took your hands in his.  
  
“This is a difficult time for us all, little bird, but I promise you that while I rule in Father’s place I will do everything in my power to take care of you,” he said, stroking his thumb over your palms.  
  
It was the first time you had heard the words ‘little bird’ come from his lips since the night with the saccharine wine and it sent your heart racing. His touch sent shivers down your spine and you wanted to take his hands in yours and finish what you’d started.   
  
 _No_ , you thought.  _This isn’t allowed._  
  
Your gaze fell on the sleeping Odin, the weeping Frigga and the glaring absence of Thor. There was nothing to distract you from Loki and, judging from the hungry expression in his eyes, he knew that just as well as you did.  
  
 _Shit._  
  
“I have to go,” you said, climbing to your feet and moving to leave.  
  
“[First Name], I shall escort you,” Loki said in response. “You should not be alone under the circumstances.”  
  
You turned and caught his gaze.  
  
“I think under the circumstances I would very much prefer to be alone,” you said.  
  
You left Odin’s chambers without a destination in mind and wandered through the corridors aimlessly for quite some time before finally entering the library. Odin had a wide collection of ancient texts brought into Asgard as gifts, trophies and relics from other worlds and as children you and Loki had found great amusement in seeking out the ones with the most gruesome pictures. You hoped that one of them might hold the answers to bringing Thor back.   
  
And of course you knew you  _had_  to bring him back. Even as you examined the spines of books older than Odin your skin tingled from Loki’s touch and your stomach turned over and over on itself. You ran your own fingers along the skin without thinking and lapsed into thoughts of what it would feel like to have his lips there, how good it would feel to have his arms around you right then.   
  
 _Who would notice if I went into his bedchambers?_  
  
You took a number of tomes over to one of the study tables and set them down before opening the front cover of the one on the top of the pile.  
  
 _Everyone is so preoccupied with Thor’s exile and Odin’s sleep, they would never notice. Even if they did, Loki is King now. He could tell them all to avert their gaze if he wanted._  
  
You stared for several moments too long at a diagram of the male anatomy and couldn’t help but superimpose Loki’s head onto it. He had been disguised as Thor the last time and so you were still in the dark about how he looked without clothes. You knew he was slender where Thor was burly but you wondered if that applied to all of him.   
  
You turned the page and arrived at the picture you and Loki had spent the longest time laughing over when you were children. It was an illustration of a couple mid-coitus, limbs intertwined with the man’s length deeply embedded between the woman‘s thighs. As children you had giggled over it, thought it was some sort of punishment due to the screaming expression on the woman’s face. It was only as you looked at it as an adult that you realised it was really just a crude illustration of an orgasm.  
  
You couldn’t help but wonder if Loki had ever been with a woman, or if you had almost been his first, which prompted you to wonder why it mattered either way. You realised you were thinking about having sex with Loki and slammed the book shut. Such thoughts were inappropriate considering what you were doing. You reached for the next book and all but jumped out of your skin when you saw Loki sitting across from you, leaning back in his chair and flicking through one of the books as if he’d been there all of the time.   
  
“Loki,” you cried out, jumping to your feet. You hoped he hadn’t seen you gawping at the illustrations, though from the look on his face you guessed that he had. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“I thought I made that much clear, [First Name]. Considering the circumstances…”  
  
“Fuck the circumstances! I thought  _I_  made it clear that I wanted to be alone.”  
  
He glanced up from his book almost reluctantly and you shuddered as his green eyes met yours.  
  
“Yes, but let’s be honest, we both know why,” he said, placing the book back on the table and slowly rising to his feet. You took in each movement, taking in how much more refined he was than Thor, how elegant he could make something so inconsequential.   
  
He stepped towards you and immediately you took a step back, causing him to laugh out loud.  
  
“Are you frightened of me, little bird?”  
  
 _No._  
  
You glanced around the shelves that surrounded you and grabbed a display knife from one of them. It was decorated with precious jewels and engraved with runic symbols, no doubt used for rituals many centuries ago, but all that mattered to you was that it was sharp.   
  
 _It‘s not you I‘m scared of_ , you thought as you held the knife in front of you.  _It’s me. I might as well stab myself in the back with this knife; heaven knows that‘s what I’ve done to everyone else._  
  
“Don’t call me little bird,” you said, your words dripping with venom.   
  
“Oh? But that’s just what you are, little bird. A sad, lost little fledgling clinging onto your perch for dear life because you’ve forgotten how to fly.”   
  
He edged closer and you raised the knife higher.  
  
“I could fly if I wanted to,” you said. “I simply choose not to.”  
  
Loki held his hands up, revealing that he had no weapons. He took one step closer, then another, wrapping his fingers around your extended wrist and pulling your arm out to the side so that you fell forward and into his body. There was a clatter as you lost hold of the knife and it hit the floor.  
  
“Are you sure about that?” Loki said, leaning in so close that he was almost whispering in your ear. “It looks to me like you’re afraid you might like it.”  
  
“The only thing I’m frightened of,” you said, trying to block out the sensation of his body so close to yours, “is having to spend the rest of my days trapped here with you.”  
  
Loki laughed at your tone and slid his free hand up your back.  
  
“You wound me, [First Name]!” he said, all the while stroking the back of your neck. “I don’t seem to remember such vile comments coming from your lips when they were wrapped around my cock.”  
  
You hadn’t expected him to refer to your encounter so bluntly and you blushed a bright red, glancing round at the deserted library and hoping that nobody had heard him. He laughed out loud when he saw you do so.  
  
“Tell me, Loki, is creeping into girls’ bedrooms disguised as their lovers the only way you get bedded?” you snapped, wriggling out of his grasp and moving so that the table sat between you. “How can you stand there and laugh knowing what a dishonorable thing you have done?”  
  
 _How can you stand there and laugh at all of these uninvited feelings you’ve given me?_  
  
“It is a crime to impersonate an Odinson! If Thor knew that you had taken his face…”  
  
Loki rolled his eyes at your words and stroked his finger along the cover of one of the books you had brought. Finally he looked up at you and smiled.  
  
“Thor would have no leg to stand on,” he said. “It’s not as if it was the first time.”  
  
Your blood ran cold at his suggestion and he laughed even more.  
  
“You-you’re lying,” was all you could muster.   
  
Loki stepped towards you and placed one of the books you had assembled into your hands.  
  
“Is that so?” he said. “Go ahead and ask him if you like; I won’t stop you. Just remember when all of this is over that were it not for me you would be married to that oaf.”  
  
With that he left the library, leaving you standing there with the book in your arms and looking every bit the lost little bird that he had said you were. So little of what he had said made sense and you couldn’t get your head around it.   
  
How could it be that Loki had come to you as Thor before and, what’s more, that Thor had known all about it? You thought back across all of your encounters with Thor, all of the times you had slept with him, told him your most private thoughts and showed him your vulnerable side. The idea that even just one of them could be a lie was too much.  
  
You remembered meeting Thor for the first time when you were a young child, shy of seven. You came from a high Asgardian family and whenever your parents visited the All-Father or Frigga you were left to play with Thor and Loki. Thor dismissed you immediately on the grounds that you were a girl whereas Loki was glad of the company and together you caused chaos and disorder around Asgard.   
  
As you grew older you visited less and less, focusing on your studies and preparing for marriage. Your parents were convinced you would marry well and good behaviour was something of a prerequisite. Over the next ten years you hardly saw Thor and Loki at all [5] until finally you received an invitation to a dance at the Odinson home to celebrate Thor’s acceptance of the mystical hammer Mjolnir.   
  
The ceremony itself was rather dull, save for the moment shortly afterward where you greeted the Odinsons, dressed in their finest garments and changed greatly by time. You remembered being much disappointed by the absence of Loki though that all changed when you took in Thor. Gone was the chubby child you remembered and replaced by a grown man, though that wasn’t the part that surprised you so much. The thing that really caught your attention about the new Thor was the look of genuine amazement he gave you when you spoke your name and the gentlemanly manner in which he kissed your hand.  
  
You danced with no one else that evening, for despite the enthusiastic advances from other women Thor never once left your side. You received your fair share of offers from warriors too, though all of them evacuated quickly at the murderous glance they received from Thor.   
  
“Why so amused?” he said as you chuckled at the sight of another failed suitor. “You are quite easily the most beautiful woman in the room tonight and I have no intentions of sharing you.”   
  
He whisked you round the dance floor then, demanding a lively song from the musicians and dancing with a new found enthusiasm. You blushed as he held you close against his body and moved his lips so that they were inches from your ear.  
  
“See, my love,” he said, spinning you round to face the other dancers who had retired over the course of evening to rub their feet and help themselves to wine. “See how you shine compared to them? You are the goddess of love and beauty and compared to you they are nothing but trolls.”  
  
That night you laughed more than you had ever laughed before, sang louder than you had ever sang before and, when your feet were black and blue from dancing, Thor took you into his arms and danced with you in them. You fell in love with him that night and, when you were summoned to dine at the Odinson household shortly afterwards, you went without a second thought. It was then that you saw Loki for the first time after such a long time apart and, like Thor, you took in the man he had become. For some reason he was unable to look you in the face.  
  
Thor arrived late to dinner and when you stood up to greet him he slapped you round the rear and commented on his good taste. You were shocked but you hid it from your face and sat back down at the table. Thor didn’t seem to remember any of what had happened at the dance and, whenever it was brought up, commented on how dancing was for women and fools.   
  
You supposed that it was all just a front as Thor was to be king of Asgard, but still you couldn’t help but think that he was like a completely different man. You realised, as you retired to your chambers to prepare for the incantation, that you had spent most of your resulting relationship with Thor waiting for the man at the dance to return to you, hoping that one evening he would take your hand in his again and declare you the goddess of love and beauty as he had done before to prove, if nothing else, that you hadn‘t dreamed it all.   
  
You placed a candle on your bedroom floor and lit it as you were instructed to in the book. It was a smoke type ritual and for a short period of time would create a gateway between worlds, which you could use to bring Thor back.  
  
Once Thor was back things would go back to normal, you told yourself, cursing Loki for leading you to think about the dance again. You hadn’t thought about it for quite some time and, like most of your encounters with Loki, had come about without your permission. At some stage you had replaced all associations you had of the man who had taken you into his arms and called you beautiful with the one who said he desired you and pushed you onto your hands and knees to shatter your virgin barrier.   
  
 _Once Thor is back things will go back to normal… But is that really what I want?_  
  
You bit your lip and took the golden strands of hair that you had pulled from your pillow, readying them for the incantation. They were your link to Thor, the key that would guide you to his location. You turned back to the book Loki had indicated to you and began to read the words.  
  
 _What does it matter what I want anyway? Asgard needs Thor._  
  
You wiped away a stray tear as you carried on reading.  
  
 _Asgard needs Thor and Asgard’s wishes must come before my own if I am ever to be a good Queen. That’s rule number one, isn’t it? A good daughter puts her father’s ambition before her own, a good wife listens only to her husband’s dreams and a good Queen lives only for her people. How much of this was what I wanted?_  
  
You remembered Loki’s hands on your skin, the feel of his lips on yours.  
  
 _How many times have I walked away from the things I truly wanted, just to complain about my unhappiness later on?_  
  
You leaned back against your bed, wiping the tears away and staring at the ceiling, the ritual forgotten. Everything had always been so clear before and you had never once doubted your path. Your parents had paved the way so clearly that you never had cause to doubt that the direction you went was the right one, the choice you made correct. Yet there you were, standing at a crossroads.  
  
You loved each man for different reasons. You could not barter or compromise. If you could only live two different lives then you could love them both, but such things were not possible even for Asgardians.   
  
There could only be one ending.  
  
Loki’s room was larger than yours, with an enormous balcony that looked down on the Bifrost hall and Asgard. Thor had one almost identical, though the view from his was of the castle courtyard and far less impressive. You contemplated it as you stood there, taking in every star, all while listening to the sound of wine being poured behind you.  
  
It had been easy enough to get into Loki’s private quarters, regardless of the fact that he was now king of Asgard. The guards let you through without questioning your motives even once. You supposed that since Loki had taken on the duty of protecting you during Thor’s absence you were permitted to visit him whenever you wished.  
  
That didn’t calm your nerves in the slightest while you stood outside of his door trying to think of the right words to say as, tempting as it was, you doubted he would appreciate you flinging yourself at him.   
  
Loki had been somewhat surprised to see you but let you in nonetheless, never once asking the reason why you had come to see him and offering you a drink of wine instead. You walked out onto his balcony to take in the view, where you currently stood, a gentle wind blowing through your hair and ruffling the fabric of your dress. If you closed your eyes you could hear the distant voices of Asgardian warriors drinking far too much mead, children being called in for bed by their mothers and the protests they called out in reply.  
  
You only opened your eyes when you heard Loki’s footsteps approaching. He had a tray in his hands laden with two goblets of wine and a small selection of fruit that included bright red Asgardian grapes, tart green apples and a banana or two.   
  
He set the tray down on a small study table near you and offered you a goblet, which you accepted gratefully. You wanted to tell him how much you desired him, how you no longer loved Thor, but the words did not come easily, so instead you took a sip of the wine.   
  
It had all seemed so easy in your head. You’d tell him how you felt, tell him everything and he’d automatically understand and embrace you. However, when you tried to put it into practice the words froze on your tongue and you were unable to put them to any sort of good use.  
  
“Does the wine please you, sweet thing?” he asked, seeming to notice your awkwardness. “I must say that after our last encounter I’m rather surprised you came looking for me. I thought that the next person to come knocking at my door would be my brother.”  
  
You nodded and stared into your goblet.  
  
“You and I both,” you murmured, considering that only that morning you had been dressed for Thor’s coronation.  
  
“Should I presume that the spell went somewhat awry? I was so sure that I gave you the correct volume-” He proceeded to set down his goblet and rifle through a nearby bookshelf. You reached out for his hand and smiled at the soft feel of his skin against yours. To say he was pale was an understatement, yet his flesh was warmer than a well built fireplace. You had always presumed in your private thoughts that his skin would be as cold and hard as a Frost Giant’s but there was no mistaking its softness against your fingertips. He froze at your touch, though, that much was true. He stared at your hand on his like it might dissolve at any moment, letting it fall before he turned to meet your gaze. You couldn’t read his expression but you were pretty sure your own was transparent.  
  
“I think you misunderstand,” you said, suddenly finding the floor completely fascinating. “I didn’t do the spell at all.”  
  
“Why?”   
  
You bit your bottom lip, searching for the right words, only to look up at him and lose them again. His eyes were cold and scathing, which you supposed you had earned. Mere hours ago you had held a knife up to him and before that you had avoided him like the plague.  
  
“Because…I don’t want Thor back,” you said, finally admitting it. “I don’t love him. In fact, I’m pretty sure I never loved him, not the way I thought I did, not the way I thought I loved-”  
  
“Little bird, you’re not making any sense,” said Loki and you started to laugh.  
  
“I know, isn’t it funny? I’m just like one of those sphinxes in your storybooks. This whole situation makes no sense and no matter which way I turn my head I find I’m just as lost as I was before, but with the benefit of at least knowing I’m lost, rather than just thinking I am,” you blabbered like a fool. “See all of this time I thought I loved Thor and now I’m starting to think that I don’t and I don’t understand why except I think I do, but the reason is-bahhhhhh!”  
  
You gave up on your blabbering and wandered over to the other side of the balcony, taking a deep gulp of wine and rubbing your temples.  
  
“It was you, wasn’t it? The night Mjolnir accepted Thor as its wielder I never danced with him at all…” you said. “Did you know that I’d fall in love with him? Did you know that I’d spend the next three years waiting for him, wondering when he would return to me?”  
  
You stared out over the balcony, unable to look Loki in the face, frozen to the spot even as you heard his footsteps approach and felt him pull you close.   
  
“If that’s some sort of mischief of yours, that’s cruel,” you muttered into his shoulder as he stroked your hair. You had been angry at him for so long that you welcomed the chance to wrap your arms around his body and bury your face in his chest, finding something of an irony in the fact that he smelled of honey and saccharine wine.  
  
“It wasn’t mischief,” he said, his lips so close to your ear that his breath tickled the skin. “Well…not exactly. Thor’s never really been one for dances unless they involve mead and vomit stained throw rugs and ceremonial dances hardly have those in steady supply. Since I’ve always been rather good at illusions we decided a long time ago that whenever a dance took place Thor could go away and drink to his heart’s content and I would take his place.”  
  
“And that night?” you said.  
  
“That night Thor and I had argued over some trifle and I was in the mood for causing havoc, make a few maidens cry, make the hog roast run laps, that sort of thing. And then…something happened that I wasn’t expecting. They introduced me to all of the fair ladies, hoping I would show interest in one or two of them and in amongst them was the prettiest little bird I have ever seen,” he said, causing you to blush at his compliment. “I knew her from long ago and I’d always thought that she was a mockingbird just like me, yet standing there just in front of me was a brilliant nightingale all smiles and courtesies and I found myself thinking. Thinking ‘she is a nightingale and I’m just a mockingbird but, for tonight at least, I can pretend that’s not true’.”  
  
Loki slipped his hands into yours, took the goblet out of your hands and led you into the first steps of a very basic Asgardian waltz. You followed without complaint.  
  
“So I danced with that beautiful girl,” he said, taking the steps perfectly in time even without music. “And the more I danced with her the more I wanted the evening to carry on forever. The more I talked with her, the more obvious it seemed that I had been in love with her from the moment I heard her name. I wanted to tell her who I really was, but I knew I could never do that. I was completely unworthy of her smile and her laughter and her charm, so how could I tell her the truth? I thought she deserved better than that...better than...”  
  
He led you into the bedroom and said nothing for a short while. You went over everything he had said, taking in his sad face as he lowered you onto his bed. It certainly explained why Thor had acted so differently after, but if that was the case, why had Thor acknowledged you at the dinner that followed? You sat up and watched as Loki seated himself next to you.  
  
“But...Thor...” you said. “He acted as if he knew me, as if he had-”  
  
You were interrupted by soft lips on yours. The kiss lasted only a moment, but it had caught you by surprise and Loki laughed at the bewildered expression on your face as he pulled away.  
  
“I'm getting to that sweet thing, don't worry,” he said and you found yourself pouting at his smug expression. If you hadn't gone to his room in the first place he would never have been able to do anything like that, yet there he was acting as if he held all of the cards.   
  
It wouldn't do.  
  
“I never expected to see that girl again,” he said, not commenting on the way you shuffled up close to him or making a sound as you sucked at his neck. “I thought that she was gone forever, but fate has a cruel way of tormenting me. Father was so busy congratulating Thor that he never stopped to think that maybe it wasn't him that night, too busy inviting that girl over to dine and planning weddings in his head that he never once asked where I was. Thor was interested by this beautiful woman but promised me that he would never give her false hopes. Of course all of that went out of the window when he saw her.”  
  
He hissed with pleasure as your lips caught a particularly soft area of skin just below his jaw and you dug in a little deeper.  
  
“I suppose I set myself up for the fall, really, especially since my oaf of a brother never stopped to listen to her laugh and saw fit to mount her like some sort of brood mare. Like a good brother I kept my distance and never got involved in their arguments, never intervened when he reduced her to tears or neglected to tell her she was beautiful. I told myself it was my fault and her tears were my punishment for being selfish but I could never convince myself,” said Loki, leaning into your kisses. “All I could see was his negligence, his ignorance of her splendor. She deserved to be worshiped and was completely...”  
  
He cupped your face.  
  
“...and utterly...”  
  
He kissed you again, leaning the weight of his body against yours and sliding one hand up your thigh.  
  
“...wasted on him.”  
  
You kicked off your shoes and lifted your legs up onto the bed, carefully wrapping them around him as he pushed you down onto your back. He was above you within seconds, showering you with so many hungry kisses that when you looked back on everything later you wondered how it was that you managed to breathe. You reached up and unhooked each of his shirt buttons one by one, needing to feel his skin against yours. He shuddered with pleasure at the feel of your fingers against his chest.   
  
“And the Jotuns?” you gasped, taking hold of his shirt and tossing it aside. “That was you too?”  
  
His skin was whiter than Frost silk and softer than the feathers that filled your pillows. He was lean, that much was true, but he was not completely devoid of muscles. He had some very well defined ones along his stomach and you found you loved the way they clenched every time your fingertips brushed against him. He smirked at your question.  
  
“All due respect my love, but you are wearing far too many clothes for me to even  _consider_  answering such a question,” he said, tracing his gaze along your neck and down to your breasts. “I may need some sort of incentive.”  
  
You blushed at the lust in his words and pushed him off you, snuggling up next to him as he lay beside you.   
  
“Is that so?” you whispered in his ear, only to shriek with pleasure as he kissed you, slipping his tongue inside without even bothering to ask. For a while you pushed your own tongue against your back teeth, inwardly cackling as Loki felt around for it, though that little bit of mischief was short lived and you sighed with pleasure at the sensation as they touched. Loki broke the kiss, nibbling your bottom lip as he did so.   
  
“You probably should not have showed me your weakness, my lord, if you wanted to make such requests,” you said, sliding your own tongue over the bite marks. It was deliberately provocative and, as you moved to straddle him, you noticed that it had not gone unnoticed. He had an erection harder than Mjolnir. Grinning meanly, you ground your hips against it and took in the sounds he made. You could tell that he was itching to throw the clothes off your back and have you right there and then, though he would never admit it for that was much the same as conceding defeat and Loki never conceded defeat. Even as a child he had had an uncanny ability to create obscure rules out of thin air that enabled him to win whatever game it was you were playing.  
  
“And what weakness would that be, dearest?”   
  
“Now that I know your tongue is not made of silver, you shall have to try extra hard to persuade me,” you said, biting your bottom lip and linking a finger under one of the straps of your dress. “What was it you wished of me?”  
  
He took in your doe eyed expression and the way it contrasted with your words, smiling approvingly.  
  
“My, you are a dirty little bird [6],” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. You responded by leaning forwards yourself, moving back the second he moved in for a kiss. He bared his teeth as you laughed at him.  
  
“Is that a bad thing?” you said, putting on the sweetest, most girlish tone you had.  
  
Loki sat up and you readjusted your position so that you were sitting in his lap with your legs wrapped around his waist. His solid member was pressed against you, practically screaming for attention, though be damned if you were going to give it any without the magic words. He may have been in Thor's body last time but that didn't change the fact that you had gotten the God of Mischief to beg and it had given you an unhealthy need to hear it from his own lips.  
  
“Of course not,” he said, motioning for you to lift up your arms, which you did without complaint. You knew he expected you to resist and even you had to admit that it was somewhat unfair that he was the only one in a state of undress. “Just be aware that I'm going to have you so hard that they'll hear you screaming in Valhalla.”  
  
He lifted your dress up over you and you watched it fall to the floor. Loki was transfixed by your breasts; you had a funny feeling he liked them.  
  
“What, only Valhalla?” you asked as he took a nipple into his mouth and bit down. Hard. You cried out in a mixture of shock and pleasure and watched as he moved to slip a hand into your underwear. You took hold of his wrist and prevented it from going any further.  
  
“You still haven't answered my question.”  
  
You felt his smile against your breasts and he wrenched his wrist out of your grip, stroking that hand along your face and smiling the demon's smile he wore so well.   
  
“I felt I owed it to Asgard to protect it from Thor’s heavy handed method of rule for a little while longer. Not to mention that I couldn’t allow such a farcical wedding to take place,” he said. “Not when the bride to be would look so very fetching screaming my name. What did you do with that dress, by the way?”  
  
The second Odin learned of the Frost Giant intrusion and you and Frigga evacuated to her room one of the first things she had you do was swap your ceremonial gown for a simple one of hers. She reasoned that if the worst came to the worst then you would be able to blend into a crowd easier that way. The fact that you were Thor's lover was currency.  
  
Loki turned his nose up at your explanation.  
  
“The Jotuns will never touch you once you are my Queen,” he said. “That I promise you.”  
  
You wondered how he was so certain of that and he used your second of hesitation to slip his hand into your underwear. He slid his fingers along your folds, grinning at how wet you were, slick and ready for him, moving his touch along your entrance and then across your clit. You gasped at the sensation and he stopped.   
  
“Was that good, little bird?” he asked, sliding his thumb over it again and taking in your reaction the same way one devours a particularly delicious treat. “It was, wasn't it?”  
  
 _Shit._  
  
He took hold of your underwear and slowly dragged them down. You hadn't expected him to find your sweet spot so soon. Now the tables were well and truly turned. He grabbed your rear with his other hand and gripped it tight, lifting you to your knees. You eased off your underwear when they reached your knees and threw them to the side, having lost what little resistance you might have had the second his thumb delivered the fatal blow.  
  
He traced his thumb in circles along your clit and you worried that you might lose your balance. You bit your bottom lip in an attempt to concentrate and Loki replied by wrapping his lips around your left nipple. He flicked his tongue against the very tip while speeding up his thumb and you moaned loudly, your hips subconsciously shifting back and forth.  
  
Damn him and his intuition. What the hell had you been thinking, pitting yourself against him in a game such as this? You had been destined to lose from the very beginning.   
  
You couldn't help but think, as he brushed his teeth against your breast, that losing wasn't such a bad thing.  
  
“I think I could get used to seeing you like this,” whispered Loki, stopping his ministrations along your clit and stroking a finger against your entrance. “Make sure you scream for me.”  
  
You wondered what he meant and then he slid a finger inside you. You yelped at the shock and he rubbed your sweet spot once again with his thumb, wrapping his lips around the other breast. It was an overload of sensations and you could feel your climax building in the pit of your stomach. All he had done was play with you a little and you were hot under the collar. You weren't sure why you were surprised.   
  
Loki nudged a second finger against your entrance and you moved your body in that direction, wanting it inside you with every fiber of your being. Loki said nothing and, when you least expected it, slipped the second finger inside. You didn't yelp that time, instead you cried out with pleasure, moaned out something incomprehensible and ground your hips with more force than before, rocking yourself up and down, moaning every time his fingers entered you. Your climax was urgent, so close that it was bordering on painful. You were going to come hard and the anticipation was killing you.  
  
And then he removed his fingers completely. You whined at their absence and looked down at Loki's face. His eyes were misted over with lust and you pushed your lips onto his.  
  
“Don't stop, my love,” you said, trying and failing to hide the urgency from your voice. “I'm so close.”  
  
He touched the hem of his trousers and your heart skipped a beat. You reached forward and he shook his head.  
  
“No,” he said, pushing away your hands. “Not this time.”  
  
You contemplated that as he pushed off his trousers and underwear, throwing them to the top of the growing pile of abandoned clothes. He wrapped one hand around his bare erection, using the other to take hold of your shoulder and push you onto your back. You wondered what he was up to.  
  
He spread your legs wide and positioned himself at your entrance, the tip of his cock brushing against you and sending shivers down your spine. You wanted him inside you, that much you knew for certain, you wanted it more than anything you had ever wanted before. He fell onto all fours, with his hands either side of your head and you took the opportunity to look up into his eyes. You knew he could see right through you. He knew you wanted him.  
  
And yet he didn't move. Why didn't he move?  
  
You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and kissed him, wrapping your legs around his body. Still he didn't deliver that first thrust, the one that in time would make your eyes roll into the back of your head and your legs shake.  
  
“Love, what is the matter?”  
  
“Say it.”  
  
You stared at him, wondering what he was talking about. What did he want you to say?  
  
And then you knew.  
  
You weren't the only one to notice the significance of making the God of Mischief beg and he was paying you back in kind. He wanted to drive you just as mad as you had driven him.  
  
“Say what?” You feigned innocence.  
  
He thrust forward, just enough so that the tip of his erection entered you, but not enough to enter you completely. Certainly not enough to satisfy you.  
  
“You know,” he said, grinning down at you.   
  
“I'm afraid I don't,” you replied.  _You'll have to do better than that._  
  
It was almost as if he read your mind, for he reached down and brushed his fingers against your clit. Waves of pleasure spread through you at his touch, reminding you just how close you were to the final release and you moaned loudly. He quickened the pace and you dug your nails into him so deeply that you were sure you drew blood. You wanted him, you wanted him, you wanted him inside you right then and you didn't care anymore what you had to do to make that happen.  
  
“This...isn't fair...” you whimpered, pleasure lacing your words.  
  
Loki grinned and kissed you on the cheek.  
  
“Oh, little bird, whoever said I played fair?”  
  
You scowled at him, wondering if he knew how much you hated him right then. You guessed that he did, for he traced his tongue around your earlobe.  
  
 _Fine..._  
  
“Please...your highness...I beg of you....bed me!”  
  
He didn't need telling twice. The second you had said it he slammed into you and you arched your back, screaming over the noise of flesh against flesh. His initial pace was slow and deep, tortuously so, though he soon quickened up, until you could no longer distinguish one thrust from another.  
  
Your orgasm arrived first and you called out his name as everything went white. He shrugged your hands off his shoulders and interlaced them with his own, crushing your lips with his and moaning into you as his own sweet release came.   
  
The two of you laid there breathless for quite some time afterward, hearts pounding, soaking with sweat and still connected by body and soul. Loki kissed you on the lips and you planted a second one on his forehead. You stayed that way as you made love the second and third time, a great deal more slowly and deeply when compared to the frantic fumbling of the first. Despite this, you never felt unfulfilled or unsatisfied. No, instead you couldn't help but feel whole, as if you had found some long lost piece of yourself you had never known to be lost.  
  
The little bird had found its wings and oh, life was good.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Frigga is Thor’s step mum. She is basically Reader’s mother in law, so yeah, aaaaaaaaaaaawkward.  
> [2] The naming system in Thor is massively medieval and children are named after their fathers, therefore Thor is Thor Odinson, as in Thor: Son of Odin, Loki is Loki Laufeyson as in Loki: Son of Laufey etc. Therefore Thor’s sons would be Thorsons.   
> [3] To clarify, this ceremony is the one at the beginning of the movie.  
> [4] I don’t know why but this line cracks me up.  
> [5] I placed reader as about 20 at the start of Surprise, so three years earlier she would have been 17-ish.  
> [6] I can't believe we made it this far without a Stephen King reference.


	7. Budapest [Surprise]

You woke to the sounds of voices outside your hotel room window, the bells of horse-drawn carriages and the smell of gulyás cooking in the restaurant opposite.   
  
Your bed was warm and you rubbed your eyes, taking in the patterns on the ceiling, the single cobweb hanging from the chandelier and swaying in a breeze you couldn’t feel. You glanced across at the bedside cabinets, the empty bottles of vodka that littered them and the variety of glasses all borrowed from the hotel bar. Clothes littered the floor.  
  
Your head was pounding but you sat up anyway, needing to stretch. The man next to you turned in his sleep as you moved, grunting sleepily as his head touched the pillow again. You ruffled your fingers through his dirty blonde hair and smiled as he reached out to touch the bow and arrows he had leaned against the bed hours before. Even in his sleep he needed to know where they were, which you thought was incredibly cute and endearing, though of course you’d never say so to his face. After his performance the night before you‘d hesitate before ever calling him cute.  
  
Your mouth was dry and you glanced over at the clock on the bedside table, squinting at the LED numbers. 9:07. You wondered if you ought to call HQ to update them on the mission and attempted to calculate the time difference. You knew it was something like six hours difference but you couldn’t remember if it was six hours in front or six hours behind. You weren’t even sure if there’d be anyone around to answer the phone if you were six hours in front and called HQ at the equivalent of 3am.  
  
Someone moved on the other side of the bed and yawned. Seconds later you heard a gun click.  
  
“What time is it?” said a very groggy Natasha Romanoff. She had made the most of her Russian heritage the night before and drank you and Clint under the table, onto the bed and out of your clothes. If you thought your head was pounding you dreaded to think how hers felt.  
  
“It’s about 9am,” you whispered, so as not to wake Clint. “Do you think we should call Fury and update him on the mission?”  
  
You took in the sight of her red hair against the white pillows, her smudged make up and bloodshot eyes. She was smiling at you.  
  
“[First Name], you’re such a good girl,” she said. “Come back to bed.”  
  
As you laid your head back down on the pillows and felt her lips on yours there was only one thing on your mind.  
  
 _I fucking love Budapest._


	8. Half Measures [Tony]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original notes are left in from Luna.

You loved your daughter to pieces but you had to admit there were moments when she drove you to the point of insanity. Maria was hot-headed, stubborn and impatient, all qualities you swore blind she had inherited from her father and to make matters even worse she was more ambitious than anyone else you had ever met. She was convinced she was going to be a nuclear physicist. The punchline? She was four.  
  
It all started the day Tony Stark went missing while visiting troops in the Afghan desert. You had watched the news headlines nervously for many days afterwards, waiting for any kind of update, though everyone seemed happy to presume he was dead and most news articles about him focussed on how well his second in command was taking charge of Stark Enterprises. You usually switched off the TV at that point. You liked Obadiah's smug face about as much as you liked animal testing.  
  
Maria must have noticed your somewhat unusual behaviour. A couple of days later you found her colouring in what appeared to be a bright blue circle while she tucked into her Cheerios.  
  
“That's lovely, honey,” you said, placing a kiss on her forehead.   
  
“It's a nuclear weapon,” she said proudly. “I'm going to save Stark from the bad man and when he sees this he'll make me president.”  
  
You were speechless.  
  
“But how are you going to get there? New York's a long way away from here.”  
  
“You'll drive me.”  
  
“And why would I do that?”  
  
“Because you're my Mommy and you love me and I'll give you a nice house when I'm president.”  
  
She did make a good point.   
  
Not long after that, Tony Stark arrived safe and sound in New York, having survived his ordeal in the desert. You hoped that would be the end of it and things would go back to normal, but it actually just made things about ten times worse. Maria kept drawing more and more weapons, giving them names and writing down lists of their abilities and how much they would cost. She was convinced that she was going to go to New York and meet Tony Stark and, what's more, that he was going to buy all of her designs and make you stinking rich.  
  
You were hardly surprised when Maria's teacher asked if she could have a word with you.   
  
“Maria's certainly the character,” Ms Schwartzmann began, rifling through a small pile of drawings your daughter had done. “Just yesterday for show and tell she brought in some lasers made out of tin foil and by first recess she'd traded them to another kid in exchange for a pack of Oreos.”  
  
You felt yourself flush red, feeling really quite embarrassed.  
  
“I'm so sorry, I'll have another word with her about it,” you said, which caused Ms Schwartzmann to smile.  
  
“Oh, not at all, Miss [Last Name]. Can I call you [First Name]? Good. I hope you don't mind me saying so, but this kind of behaviour is really quite common in children living in similar situations to you and Maria,” she said. “I hope you don't mind me asking but...when was the last time Maria saw her father?”  
  
You did mind her asking, but you kept quiet about it.  
  
“Maria's father...” you weren't sure how to find the words. “He's a really busy guy. When I got pregnant it didn't really fit into his lifestyle, so we decided it would be better if we lived apart.”  
  
Ms Schwartzmann nodded and made noises to show she understood. You knew she didn't really understand. Nobody did. The day you showed up in the middle-of-nowhere village you now called home, knocking on every door to see if anyone had any work available or a spare bed for the night, they had all come to the same conclusion that you were an outsider. As time went by and it became more obvious that you were pregnant, everyone wanted to know why you didn't just go home, especially since it was clear from your clothes and your New York registration plate that you weren't exactly running from poverty. You never did, though, and everyone fell in love with Maria's beautiful newborn face the second they saw her. They soon forgot that they had been so suspicious of you only a matter of months before.  
  
You made damn sure you never told anyone about the cheque, about that final meeting and dismissal. You knew it would bite you in the ass later and you were sick, tired and fed up of being bitten in the ass.  
  
“It's pretty clear to me from Maria's behaviour that she would benefit from having some sort of regular visitation pattern with her father,” said Ms Schwartzmann. “Children living apart from a significant family member such as their father or mother find ways to fill the void with other people...”  
  
You smirked.  _Oh the irony._  
  
You laughed off her words to begin with, stroked Maria's hair before helping her into the car and said nothing about your talk with her teacher. In the end the tension was too much for her and she climbed onto your lap while you watched an old rerun of  _Wheel of Fortune._  
  
“Am I in trouble, Mommy?” she asked, staring up at you with the puppy dog eyes she'd inherited. You had never been able to stay mad at either of them thanks to those eyes.  
  
“Of course not,” you said, wrapping your arms around her like you had when she was a baby. She was still small enough to fit on your lap, but not for much longer. “Why would you think that?”  
  
“You talked to Ms Schwartzmann after school. Was it about my lasers?”  
  
“Well, since we're on the topic, I did wonder where all my tin foil was going,” you said. “And you always tell me you don't like Oreos.”  
  
“I got them from Oscar Westerby,” she said, referring to a pudgy kid in her class you'd seen waddling round at a few country fairs. “I don't want him to get heart disease.”  
  
You bit back your laughs and squeezed her.  
  
“You shouldn't say things like that about other people,” you said, half scolding, half laughing.  
  
“But Mommy, you always say I should tell the truth!”  
  
“Sometimes it's best not to say anything at all.”  
  
“But I  _really_  don't want him to get heart disease!”  
  
She fell asleep in your arms that night, having told you all about the new weapon ideas she had and how long it would take to design them. You thought back to the morning you learned you were going to have her, back when you were still working in accounting at Stark Enterprises. You had sobbed in the bathroom for four hours straight, thinking your life was over.   
  
Something unexpected had happened a couple of days earlier. Mid-climax, yet thrusting into you with such gusto that no one would guess it was your third time in a row, Tony had said he loved you. He never said that about anything, not even ordinary things like cheeseburgers or pinstriped suits. When you asked him about it while you cuddled later on he didn't bother to deny it and, in case that did not convince you, you knew from examining the company accounts that Tony hadn't taken another woman on a hot date since he met you.  
  
You had known it was all too good to be true and there you were, a handful of positive pregnancy tests later, watching as it all collapsed around your ears. Saying he loved you was a good step, you supposed, but having a baby was something else entirely. When you finally left the bathroom you had convinced yourself to tell him.  
  
And that's when you were escorted to Obadiah's [1] office.   
  
You had no idea how he knew but he had a cheque waiting for you. The number of zeros on it made your eyes pop and, when he saw that reaction, he added two more.   
  
“This,” he said, “is insurance. Book yourself in at a clinic and don't bother Tony again. Your desk has already been cleared.”  
  
You realised that that was how he intended to dismiss you and you tore the cheque up before his eyes.  
  
“You think I can be bought?” you remembered screaming at him. “What gives you the right to give me any kind of instructions?  _Tony's_ head of the company, not you.”  
  
Before you knew it, you were slammed into the wall, your arm twisted firmly behind your back.  
  
“Listen to me, you stupid little bitch,” he hissed in your ear, twisting your arm so hard that you thought it might break. “Tony might be head of the company, but I've had a share since before you knew what a Wonderbra was. I've worked too hard on this to let my share fall to nothing because you couldn't keep your legs shut [2]. Do you understand?!”  
  
He twisted your arm even more and you had to bite your lip to stop yourself from screaming.  
  
“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”  
  
Your eyes blurred with tears and slowly you nodded, so he'd let go of you more than anything. You didn't have to look at him to know he smiled at your submission.  
  
“It's good that we can talk like this,” said Obadiah, loosening his grip on you. You winced as feeling came back into your arms and rubbed the muscle, watching out of the corner of your eye as Obadiah went to sit down at his desk. “Now. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to write you another cheque, bigger this time, and in return you're going to turn around, walk out of the front door and never come back.”  
  
You wanted to protest but you were too frightened.  
  
“I'll write you the number of a clinic right here,” he said, taking a memo note from his side and scribbling down a number. “They're owned by Stark Enterprises and I have full access to their records. If you don't go like I've asked I'll know about it. If you call Tony or make any other attempt to contact him I'll know. After today another accountant will take over your desk and all of your details will be removed from our systems, so you won't have security clearance any more; don't bother trying to enter this building when you think I won't be looking. I'm always looking. Do you understand?”  
  
You didn't say anything and he took that to be consent, sliding the cheque and phone number towards you and leaning back into his chair. You stared at the cheque, thinking that there was enough money on there for you to retire comfortably, more cash than you could hope to earn in the next ten years.   
  
You pushed it back towards him.  
  
“I don't think  _you_  understand,” you said. “I don't want your money.”  
  
You ran then, tearing through the corridors as fast as your legs would carry you. You climbed into your car, sped off into the distance and never looked back. You had never told Tony the truth about what happened, though you knew he wondered about you. Your voice mail had never been so full before, message after message of  _'[First Name], it's Tony, are you avoiding me? Call me when you get this'_ ,  _'[First Name], I'm getting really worried, Obadiah says you've cleared out your desk. What's going on? Call me back'_ ,  _'[First Name]...If I've done something to upset you then I'm sorry'_. It broke your heart that you couldn't call him back for fear of who else might be listening, even more so when he finally stopped leaving you messages.   
  
Whenever morning sickness made you feel like hell, the second your waters broke and you had your first contractions, the first time you held your daughter in your arms — they were all moments you picked up your phone to call Tony. You never followed through with it though, you had been scared for your life that day and you didn't know what Obadiah would do to your daughter. You wouldn't let him hurt her, couldn't let him hurt her.  
  
And yet, you thought as you took in her sleeping face, she and Tony deserved to know each other. Every time she showed you a new weapon design, you couldn't help but wonder how Tony would feel seeing them, if he'd look as proud as you imagined. Maria  _was_  a chip off the old block, after all. Maria never asked why she didn't have a Dad, just accepted things the way they were, though that wouldn't last forever. You knew she would be even more boisterous as a teenager and would probably seek out her sire on her own, without you around to protect her.  
  
You reached onto the coffee table for your phone and scrolled through your contacts. Something had changed in you the day you had your daughter. You ran before because you were too afraid and you thought your own life was in the balance, but this time you had someone else to protect, someone you would die for. Obadiah could threaten you all he liked but if he tried to hurt Maria you'd make damn sure he regretted it.  
  
You found Tony's number and pressed 'dial' before you could change your mind.  
  
If he loved her even half as much as you did she'd be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Does anyone remember who Obadiah is? I kept wondering that while writing, so here's a little something to jog your memory in case you've forgotten. He's the villain from Iron Man 1 and the original Vice-President of Stark Enterprises. He's also a massive douchenozzle.  
> [2] In case this is somewhat unclear, the whole reason Obadiah tried to kill off Tony in the first place was so that he could gain control of Stark Enterprises. If Tony fathered a kid, he could name it heir to the company in event of his death as opposed to Obadiah, like Tony's Dad did.


	9. I Thee Wed [Steve]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a two-parter (the following chapter is part two). As usual, the end notes are the originals from Luna.

Ever since you could remember, you had been affectionately known as ’one of the guys’. You had four older brothers, all of whom were older than you and you spent your childhood wrestling them and cussing as if you were a guy, dressing in their hand me downs and even sharing a similar choppy hairstyle. Fate even had humour enough to leave you a late developer; you still had a flat chest at fourteen.

It was a common joke among your family that you'd never get married and you had always been happy to leave it at that. Whenever you put on a dress you felt like an extra from  _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_  and the thought of even having a boyfriend left you bewildered and confused.

That's why the sight of yourself wearing a wedding dress was so very, very, weird.

You had no opinion on dresses, especially not wedding dresses, so you borrowed your mother's rather than risk the humiliation of travelling to a bridal store and picking one for yourself. Your mother was about the same size as you anyway and she was so shocked when you announced your engagement that she couldn't give you the dress fast enough. It was old fashioned, with long lacy sleeves and a train, but you figured that wasn't a problem as your fiancé would probably prefer that.

Initially the two of you were going to have a small ceremony at a local chapel, with only a handful of witnesses and a light meal afterwards. Tony had learned of this following the Tesseract incident and before you knew it your entire ceremony was uprooted to the middle of the Indian Ocean, where he owned a private island. It was the kind of wedding most girls dreamed about, but you weren't most girls and you were pretty sure you knew the reason for his sudden generosity.

Not only did you have four older brothers, but you had also been blessed with a little sister too. Your childhood horse phase lasted all of three seconds while hers lasted five years and while you went to work in sensible shoes and a trouser suit, [Sister] put on her high heels and took the longest time deciding which bag matched her jacket the best. Whenever you met in the cafeteria for coffee she would laugh at you for having yours black, while ordering herself a Latte Rosetta.

You both worked for SHIELD and it was only when you both introduced yourselves as Agent [Last Name] that the penny dropped and folks realised you were related. Sometimes not even then. You had had people laugh out loud at the suggestion that you were sisters, thinking you were being sarcastic.

Among those people was Tony Stark. You had worked with him on a couple of minor assignments, so you knew the sort of man he was and it didn't surprise you at all when his first instinct was to flirt with [Sister]. He didn't believe she was your sister until you threatened to shoot him in the face if he tried anything.  _Then_  he believed you.

You knew that Tony had something up his sleeve, that he probably wanted some alone time with your sister more than anything else, but he had refused to take no for an answer.

You glanced around at your surroundings — the room Tony had jokingly referred to as the bridal suite. You had never been a fan of cruise liners to begin with and this one was far too fancy for your liking, with at least three champagne coolers and a giant flat-screen television mounted on the wall. Your mother's dress was lovely, you couldn't argue with that, but when you compared it to your luxurious surroundings you had to admit it looked out of place.

You were interrupted from your private thoughts by a knock on your door and Pepper poked her head around the corner, grinning broadly at the sight of you in your gown. Regardless of your feelings for Tony, you and Pepper actually got on very well and she was one of your bridesmaids. You had a grand total of four bridesmaids made up of Pepper, Darcy [Sister] and Natasha. Natasha had been a little reluctant to accept the honour at first as, like you, weddings weren't really her thing. She was happiest out on assignments with dirt on her face so, to sweeten the deal, you told her she could wear a gun holster under her dress.

“Ready?” said Pepper, grinning broadly and stepping inside. She was immediately followed by [Sister], Darcy and Natasha, all fully dressed in their bridesmaid gowns and gasping when they saw you. Your bridesmaid dresses were ivory to match your dress and the bodices had been embroidered with a smaller version of the lacy floral pattern that your mother's dress was embroidered with.

[Sister] grabbed your hands and jumped up and down excitedly.

“[First Name], you look so pretty, I can't believe it!”

“That I look pretty? Gee, thanks [Sister].”

She blushed furiously at your words and shook her head.

“You know that's not what I meant,” she said, pouting, which just made you laugh.

“Yeah,” you admitted. “You're right, I know.”

[Sister] took hold of your arm and gazed at the reflection the pair of you cast in the mirror.

“You're getting married, [First Name], I can't believe it...”

A couple of years earlier you wouldn't have believed it either. Back then you regularly went to a local bar with a few male SHIELD agents after work to drink beer and play pool. You didn't bother putting on nice shoes or even make up when you went out with them and if anyone spilled beer down you the thought of a wasted drink bothered you more than anything else.

That all changed when you met Steve.

You were in charge of the retrieval mission sent into the wind and snow to bring Steve Rogers' comatose body back to New York. It was a hard mission and more than once you found yourself thinking 'this had better be worth it'. The days of Captain America and the Red Skull were way before your time, so at the time you didn't understand why everyone at base made such a fuss over the find. All you understood was that your team had been sent into the middle of nowhere to explore a long forgotten ship. You knew there was a shield there, so you assumed the other 'artefacts', as Nick referred to them, would be armour. You weren't complaining when you found a handsome guy instead, especially when you learned that the aforementioned handsome guy was one of the world's first superheroes. You kept a close eye on him on the journey back, taking in how long his eyelashes were while making a note of his vitals.

You were sad when you returned to New York and he was placed in the care of other people. You didn't think you would ever get to see him again or, worse, you would but you'd be a stranger to him. You had to laugh at the irony that the closest thing you had ever had to a full on crush was on a guy old enough to be your grandfather that you found half buried in an iceberg and you busied yourself with other assignments, all while keeping close tabs on HQ, waiting for the news that Captain America was awake. You had brought him back in excellent condition so there was no reason why he shouldn't wake up.

You were out on an assignment in Indonesia around the time that Steve opened his eyes, so you didn't get back to New York until at least a week after that. That particular mission was a covert operation, so you travelled without any major communications equipment and it was only after you bandaged yourself up on the way home that you realised you had a lot of missed calls. Steve was finally awake and was asking questions about the layout of the ship where you'd found him, questions only you could answer.

Steve was surprised when he first met you, claiming that he hadn't expected a 'dame' to have been the one to drag him out of the ice. Your friends thought it was hilarious whenever he opened a door for you or went to pull out a chair when you walked into a room. You never commented on how much you secretly liked it. You were so used to being 'one of the guys' that when Steve went out of his way to treat you like a lady it took you completely by surprise.

You were so used to talking with 20th century guys that you completely missed his old fashioned attempts at flirtation and, when he finally plucked up the courage to ask you out dancing, it seemed to come out of the blue. You accepted straight away, feeling giddy for the first time in your life, though those feelings turned to ones of dread when you remembered that you had two left feet and nothing to wear.

That evening was full of firsts. It was the first time you ever willingly borrowed some of your sister's clothes, a tasteful navy blue dress that you paired up with a cardigan and flats so that you didn't feel completely out of your comfort zone. That night was the first time you ordered something to drink other than beer and danced with a guy rather than beat him at pool. You felt much better when Steve admitted he wasn't a very good dancer either.

Steve was exactly the kind of guy your father wanted you to bring home, which you supposed was the reason they got on so well. He was eager to meet your parents, loved your mother's cooking and didn't ask if he could kiss you until he was absolutely certain your Dad wouldn't chase him out of town for doing so.

It felt like only hours since you arrived home to find half of SHIELD, your family and the Avengers in your tiny apartment, cheering as Steve dropped to one knee and asked if you would marry him. It had all happened so quickly after that.

You stepped out of your 'bridal suite' with your sister's arm linked through yours. Your parents stood outside, your mother sobbing, your father patting her on the arm. When they saw you, your mother's howls got louder and you were sure your Dad's eyes misted over too.

“Well,” you said, giving them a quick twirl. “How do I look?”

Your mother gave you a hug, taking great care not to crease your dress and your Dad all but tackled you. You might have been wearing a wedding dress, about to walk down the aisle and become somebody's wife, but you would always be the fifth son he never had and nothing would change that. You were no different to him then as you had been as a kid when he taught you how to punch by holding up his hands and pretending to be dead when you hit.

“You look so beautiful, [First Name],” he said, holding you so tight that you worried your ribs might break. “I barely recognised you.”

You collected your bouquet from the cruise liner staff and stepped out onto the top deck, ready for the ceremony. The sun was just starting to set and the sky was bright red, merging into a deep orange the closer it got to the floor. Even in the half light you could see your Dad's medals shining and you couldn't help but smirk. Your father was a retired Marine Commander and he'd put on his old uniform and medals for the occasion. He had a fair few and it must have taken him hours just to find them all and get them polished.

You glanced out across at the beach before you and your heart skipped a beat. A makeshift archway had been built onto the sands with several white chairs for the guests and plain white candles placed at certain points along the sands to light up the growing darkness. From where you were standing it looked just like the beach was lit up by hundreds of fireflies and you were speechless. You didn't think you'd seen anything so beautiful in your life and for a moment you thought you'd be happy just standing there looking at it.

Your Dad took your hand and led you down onto the beach, your bridesmaids a little way behind. Your Mom walked up to you, having finally stopped crying.

“Are you ready?”

“As ready as I'll ever be.”

“I'll tell them to get started.”

You watched your mother walk up to the archway and whisper something to the acting priest. You hadn't met the priest and he (you assumed it was a him due to how tall he was) had his back to you, but you did see something that brought a huge grin to your face.

He was at the front waiting for you. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like he was wearing his old military uniform too. How the heck had he gotten one on such short notice? [1]

The musicians took their cue and the priest turned round, revealing none other than Tony himself; you had no idea why you were surprised. All of the guests stood up at the sound of the first music notes and you stole glances at each of them as you took your initial steps down the aisle.

Everything seemed to be in slow motion. You saw Coulson and his wife, hand in hand and no doubt reminiscing about their own wedding, Fury with Agent Hill (you wondered if they had arrived together), your brothers and their respective girlfriends, wives and children. Bruce sat near the front with Clint and they both gave Steve the thumbs up when they saw you. Even Thor had made the effort to come and he wore traditional Asgardian robes for the occasion, which looked very similar to his regular clothing but with the addition of a crown. Jane sat with him, smiling warmly and eyeing her companion like a hawk. You had asked her to be a bridesmaid too, but she declined on the grounds that somebody needed to keep an eye on Thor and ensure he behaved himself. It wasn't that you didn't trust him but you were well aware that there were many Asgardian customs you didn't know about, particularly where weddings were concerned. The fact that you were even getting married in the first place had left him confused.

“But to what end? Am I right to assume you haven't bedded her?” you remembered him asking Steve and the lurid shade of red Steve had turned in response.

Steve was old fashioned by default and, while you had never directly had the conversation, you had always known where you stood when it came to sex. Steve was from a time when sex outside of marriage was considered a taboo and the woman's body was still something of a mystery to him. He kissed you often enough, but even that had taken a  _lot_  of persuasion. He always asked you first, which was incredibly romantic but did nothing for the side of you that wanted him to grab you when you least expected it and kiss you like you'd never been kissed before.

“Steve,” you had said to him, after debating the issue long and hard, “you do know that you can just kiss me, right? You don't have to ask me.”

He had blushed at the very thought.

“But...what if you don't want me to kiss you?”

You cupped his face and kissed him on the cheek.

“I  _always_  want you to kiss me.”

Only the day before Steve had apologised profusely because his hand brushed against your breast completely by accident and he remained the same shade of crimson for the rest of the day, even more so after you attempted to console him by joking that after the wedding he could touch you whenever he wanted.

You never mentioned it to Steve, as you knew he was incredibly nervous about it, but you were looking forward to your wedding night. You weren't a virgin but most of your encounters had been one night stands, while Steve wanted commitment and that appealed to you so much more. You knew that when you first made love to him he would have no intentions of ever sleeping with anyone else and that meant far, far more to you than any other romantic gesture you'd received.

The archway was made of wood and painted white, with various white flowers entwined around the frame and lit up by scented candles, which filled the air with the sweet smell of coconut and honeysuckle. Tony was wearing a plain white suit, no doubt to signify his involvement in the affair, and sunglasses despite the time of day. You couldn't help but smirk, even as you took your place and looked your husband to be in the face for the first time that day. He was smiling too and mouthed 'wow' as the music stopped and he took your hands, ready to take his vows.

At your brother's wedding [Sister] had been completely unimpressed.

“How cheap is that!” she whispered to you as you sat down and waited for the bride. “You would have thought he'd buy a suit for the occasion rather than just putting on his work clothes.”

“On the contrary,” you had said. “[Brother #1] is coming to her as a man who serves his country and keeps his word. He's going to take his marital vows with the same degree of passion that he took his army ones.”

You knew of Steve's passion to serve his country and your spine tingled at the touch of his woollens against your skin. You harboured no doubts that Steve meant every word of the vows he was about to make and you didn't understand how it was you had gotten so lucky.

“Ladies and gentleman,” Tony started, but you hardly heard him.

In fact you hardly heard any of the vows, only coming back to reality when it was time for you to say 'I do'. You couldn't take your eyes off Steve, couldn't believe the man standing before you was there to marry you. It didn't seem real, even as you exchanged rings and were pronounced man and wife. Steve barely took his eyes off you either. Every time he said 'I do', he looked straight into your eyes first and made sure you were looking before speaking the words.

Tony wrapped his arms around the two of you and grinned like a Cheshire cat.

“You kiss the bride or I will,” he said, puckering up and leaning your way. Steve playfully pushed him out of the way and lifted you into his arms, planting a soft one on your lips the second he was sure he wouldn't drop you.

“Let's get this party started!” Tony shouted across at the band as your guests stood up to cheer and applaud you. You and Steve weren't even paying attention, you were too busy taking in the fact that you were husband and wife. You were finally Agent [First Name] Rogers, just like you had fantasised about while you took in his vitals all that time ago.

If there was one thing Tony was good at it was showing off how rich he was. If there was one thing he was  _really_  good at it was throwing a party. You considered that as you watched fireworks light up the sky and threw your bouquet into the crowd. Natasha caught it without even thinking and, somewhat appalled when she realised what she had done, passed it to Jane. Thor seemed to approve, though you weren't entirely sure he understood the significance of what was happening, as he immediately began to dismantle the bouquet and slip the flowers into his date's hair. [2]

It wasn't long before Tony had convinced the band to play upbeat music and called upon the cruise liner staff to bring out food and drink with extra emphasis on the drink. The night's food consisted of various local dishes you had never seen or heard of before, though Bruce seemed familiar with all of them and pointed out the ones that were especially spicy. You soon learned however, after testing a small portion of a skewered fish platter, that his perception of what was spicy and what wasn't had been greatly distorted by his travels [3]. He assured you that it was 'mild', 'a small kick and nothing more', yet you found you didn't believe him quite so much when your throat began to burn. Steve's culinary adventures remained limited to banana pudding and you couldn't say you blamed him.

You still couldn't dance, but when you had your first dance with Steve as bride and groom you didn't care. You and Steve didn't have a 'song', mostly because you were from such different times and didn't agree on music. It was an understatement to say Steve didn't get modern music. Honestly? He was horrified by it. He claimed the lyrics were sordid and hardly the proper thing for a man and woman to say to one another, while you were unable to find an old song that truly fitted how you felt about him. You settled for a slow melody and smiled as he wrapped his arms around you.

“You're looking very beautiful today, Mrs Rogers,” he whispered into your ear.

“Thank you, Mr Rogers,” you replied, leaning into his chest. Even at night the air was humid and he had taken off his heavy jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves, leaving his chest delightfully firm against you.

After you and Steve had danced everyone else wanted a little of the action and you kicked off your shoes, moving across the hot sands with various different partners. Tony asked you first, followed by Bruce, then Clint, then Thor, who taught you the basics of a dance from his homeland, which involved him taking your hands in his and the pair of you jumping from one foot to the other in time to the music. Even Fury loosened up after a couple of drinks and asked you to dance. He was a surprisingly good dancer, too.

Steve didn't escape the attentions of your guests and danced with your sister, followed by Natasha, then Maria, then Pepper, then your mother, then Tony, who had clearly had something strong to drink since he last danced with you as he offered to dance the woman's parts. When you finally got the chance to dance with your Dad, he grinned at your guests and shook his head.

“Some interesting friends you got here,” he said, laughing as Tony giggled in an incredibly high pitched voice and Clint and Natasha started to play Cowboys and Indians with jet skis. Fury was too busy having an impromptu yoga lesson from Bruce to warn them against it and from the looks of things Coulson was completely preoccupied with observing Steve's safety to intervene. Darcy and Jane were, however, clued in on the situation and in the middle of placing bets on whether Natasha or Clint would win.

“Yeah,” you said, catching Steve's gaze out of the corner of your eye and noticing him mouth 'help me'. “But they're the best we've got.”

You stood up onto your tiptoes and kissed your Dad on the cheek.

“Now if you'll excuse me, I'd better go and save my husband,” you said, walking over and thinking how good that had sounded.

“Oh my,” said Tony, in a ludicrously effeminate voice when you approached, shielding Steve with his body. “Whatever happens, we mustn't let her come between us.”

“Is he bothering you, honey?” you asked, pushing Tony out of the way and taking Steve into your arms. “See — all better.”

“I'm so glad to see you,” Steve said, his breath hot against the top of your head.

You looked up into his eyes and kissed him on the lips. The smell of the candles, the beat of the drums, the roar of the jet skis and everyone's laughter was heady and exotic, but you much preferred the gentle simplicity of the man in front of you. You wanted to be alone with him, away from the party.

“Why don't we go somewhere a little more...private?” you said, taking his hand in yours. “I need to get out of this dress.”

His eyes widened at your meaning, but he squeezed your hand nonetheless.

Tony's island doubled up as a honeymoon spot for the two of you and he had emptied out an apartment on the other side of the beach for you to use while you stayed there. Tony and Steve had arrived together so Steve had already had the pleasure of a tour of the island, which mainly seemed to be a list of places you couldn't have sex. Steve pointed each of those out to you as you passed them, stuttering over the reason they were forbidden and looking more and more nervous the closer you got to your apartment.

Your apartment was on the large side, complete with an automated greeting system.

“Good evening Steve and [First Name]. Will you require a cool beverage?”

You glanced around at the joint kitchen-dining room that you had walked into. It was very modern, with pleasingly cold work surfaces and state of the art technology. Even the ice maker seemed to have about eleven different settings. Directly across from the dining area was a set of French doors, which you presumed led to a pool of some sort due to the reflected light rays that seemed to dance across some of the kitchen utilities.

“Th-that one-” Steve began, indicating the kitchen worktop.

“No sex on it,” you said. “Right. Gotcha.”

You walked across to the French doors, wondering how they opened as neither door had a visible handle. You reached out to slide them, only for a beep to sound and the doors open by themselves. You gasped when you saw what was on the other side.

You weren't a fan of luxury, but even you had to admit that the jacuzzi that greeted you was nothing short of amazing. As you stepped outside onto the patio, several spotlights inside it lit up one by one and the water began to froth invitingly.

“Th-that one is an absolute no,” Steve piped up behind you and you pouted. “Tony said that one was the King of p-places we-”

“What Tony doesn't know won't hurt him,” you said, suddenly feeling very mischievous. “I won't tell him if you won't.”

Steve glanced into your eyes, then at the rippling waters and you could tell from his expression alone that he thought it looked just as tempting as you did but didn't want to admit it. You leaned into his frame and kissed him on the lips, hooking one finger around his shirt button and unfastening it. Steve deepened the kiss as you did so and you reached down to unfasten the second button, then the next and so on until his chest was exposed. You stroked your hand along his bare skin and he gasped, taking his hand and resting it on top of yours, directing the path it took across his body.

“You, Missy, are a bad influence.”

“But  _you_ , Sir, like it.”

Steve laughed and dropped his shirt to the floor, leaning over to kiss you again. You moaned into the kiss and reached down towards his belt buckle, tugging at the fastening until it came loose. You threw the offending item to one side and pulled away from Steve as you heard it clatter against the floor, turning your back to him and looking over your shoulder. He always looked so good without a shirt, especially when he was in the midst of wrapping his arms around your middle and placing kisses on your neck.

This was the furthest you had ever gotten, you couldn't help but think as he reached for the zip of your dress. Steve let you take off his shirt when you were taking blood samples or rigging him up to one monitor or another but never when you were alone and certainly not when kissing was involved. Whenever you had attempted it in the past he responded by taking hold of your hands and interlacing them with his own, ending the kissing there and then.

He didn't stop kissing you this time, though, not even as he took hold of the top of your zip [4] and unfastened it. The prospect of your wedding day had caused a great many firsts too. For the first time in your life you had bought fancy underwear, rather than settling for the usual comfortable sets you wore and, as your dress fell to your ankles you couldn't help but feel proud of your decision. When you turned to face him, Steve could do nothing but stare.

Pleased with the effect you had on him, you reached up and unhooked your bra, taking it off and tossing it to one side. Steve looked away as you were exposed and you giggled, reaching out and cupping his face in yours. You weren't sure if it was the heat of the night or his modesty that made him feverish to the touch.

“Steve,” you said. “It's okay. You can look.”

Slowly, very slowly, Steve turned to look at you, his eyes scanning over your face, down across your shoulders and onto your breasts. His eyes dropped to the floor and you kissed him on the cheek, taking hold of his hand and placing it on one of your breasts. The feel of his hand on your skin made your stomach flutter and you inhaled sharply as it sent ripples of pleasure rocketing all the way to your core. Steve stared at the sight of his hand on your breast, finally working up the courage to stroke the skin and explore your breast from every angle. You gasped when he first squeezed it and he retracted his hand immediately.

“Sorry,” he said. “I-I got carried away. Did that hurt?”

You giggled.

“Not at all,” you said. “Do it again.”

Steve nodded and complied, this time with both hands. He watched in fascination as your nipples went hard the more his fingers brushed against them and how some of his touches made you lean your head back and sigh with pleasure.

“I always wondered what these felt like,” he said, breaking the silence that had enclosed you. “Back when Bucky used to try and get me a girl to dance with. He told me they felt like sandbags, but they don't, not at all.”

“Do you like them?”

Steve smiled and stood back a little to admire them.

“They're perfect,” he concluded, before kissing you on the forehead. “ _You're_  perfect.”

You smiled and caught his lips on yours. You half wished all of the guys who had laughed at the thought of a tomboy like you getting married could see you being called perfect. Instead you settled for reaching out towards his trousers and unhooking the top button, slipping your finger along the zipper and unfastening them. Steve watched you do it, watched your fingers glide along the fabric of his trousers and the surface of the underwear he had on underneath. He shuddered as you found his erection and stroked the tip of your finger along it, thinking to yourself that he felt very, very well endowed.

There was only one way to find out.

You pulled his trousers down, kneeling as you got to his ankles and pulling each trouser leg off. You stood up and drank in the sight of your husband standing before you in nothing but his underwear and blushing furiously. This was the most naked he had ever been in front of anyone other than his mother, you knew that and that knowledge filled you with excitement.

You climbed to your feet again and slipped off your own remaining underwear, standing naked before him for the first time in your relationship. You had fantasised about it more than once, on occasions when you ended up sitting a boardroom listening to HQ prattle on about one issue of global safety or another. Once you had actually found yourself drooling.

You took Steve's hand in yours and guided him over to the jacuzzi, stepping into the water and taking in how the water felt against your skin. You stepped back and took hold of the hemline of Steve's underwear and tugged those down, pulling them off completely as he stepped into the water. You were right, he  _was_  well endowed and his erection stood tall against his abdomen in anticipation of what was about to happen. If you weren't already wet thanks to the jacuzzi, you would almost certainly have been soaking at the sight of that alone.

The jacuzzi was quite deep and when Steve stood up in the water it came to his waist. You had to tread water slightly to stay afloat and welcomed the chance to wrap your arms around his shoulders.

“Have I said it yet today?” Steve asked, water droplets dripping along his muscles wherever you touched him. “That I love you?”

It was something of a quirk of Steve's that he needed to tell you he loved you every day. You knew he had lost so many people before that were dear to him and his largest regret was never telling them so. He wasn't going to make that mistake with you.

“No...I don't think you have.”

“Well I love you a lot,” said your husband. “After I woke up I never thought I'd grow to love anyone ever again yet here were are, man and wife, our whole lives ahead of us.”

He kissed your lips and placed a hand against your stomach.

“Maybe after tonight there'll be a baby in there,” he said, chuckling. “A little Rogers.”

You couldn't help but join in with his laughter.

“There's only way to find out,” you said, reaching down and stroking your fingertips along his length. He sucked in a mouthful of air at your touch and nodded, wading over to one of the jacuzzi walls and smothering you in kisses. He pushed his body into you, his kisses becoming hungrier and hungrier and you lifted your arms out of the water and up onto the edge to steady yourself as you spread your legs and wrapped them around Steve.

Steve took hold of your legs and positioned himself, gulping before shifting his hips and penetrating you. You gasped at the sensation of your bodies joining to become one for the first time; it was a tight fit and you squeezed your eyes shut while you adjusted.

“[First Name]....look at me,” Steve said and you opened your eyes slowly, taking in the way the water shimmered against your lover, the protective yet passionate way he looked at you. He was waiting for you to say he could move, holding back with everything he had so that he didn't hurt you.

“Steve, I want you,” you said. “Right now.”

His thrusts were slow and deep to begin with, pushing you back against the jacuzzi wall with every stroke. Each time your bodies disconnected you found yourself moaning for the moment they could be rejoined. You were positioned perfectly for his tip to brush against the soft bundle of nerves midway up your core that no other guy had come close to finding. Your lips barely left Steve's, but when they did it was to urge him on or let him know what felt good. Steve was not quite as vocal as you were, but he did make his mindset known in other ways. You knew he was close to climax by the way he gripped hold of your butt and used it as an anchor for faster, deeper thrusts.

You reached your first orgasm quickly and linked your arms around Steve's shoulders, pushing yourself as close to him as was anatomically possible as the first waves of pleasure spread through your body. Steve's first moan came then, as your walls clenched against him.

“[First Name],” he said, his voice shaky. “I-”

He never finished his sentence for his release arrived then and he leaned his head back and gave in to the intense sensations of pleasure flooding his body. Something hot and warm filled you and Steve rested his head against your chest, where you caught your breath. You stayed there for a short while, staring up at the night sky and feeling the hot jacuzzi water against your skin. Your body still pulsed with the afterglow of orgasm and everything felt several times more intense than it had before; even a single droplet of water running down your skin gave you goosebumps.

“Well, that was different,” said Steve, breaking the silence and lifting up his head to survey the scene. “Heh, guess we got a little excited.”

You followed his gaze to see what he was talking about and felt a familiar flutter deep in your core when you spotted how your little escapade in the jacuzzi had affected your surroundings. There was water everywhere and you had all but flooded the patio; the clothes you had left closest to the edge of the jacuzzi had been caught up in the current and washed into the water, where they floated on the surface mere inches from where the two of you were positioned.

You smirked at the sight of your underwear quite innocently floating alongside Steve's shirt, knowing that their presence there alone was quite the opposite. In the end you couldn't control yourself and you erupted into laughter.

And that's when the phone began to ring. You glanced at Steve, who shrugged and then at your surroundings. You had left your cell on the boat and Steve...Steve wasn't too good with technology. Ordinarily you would have ignored it, but the ringtone was loud, shrill and, frankly, irritating.

“I won't be long,” you said, giving Steve a kiss before you climbed out of the jacuzzi and walked over to the automated French-doors. Your thighs throbbed from your previous lovemaking and you dreaded how they'd feel in the morning, though that was totally worth it for the chance to watch Steve's reflection in the French doors admire your naked body retire into the apartment.

There was a phone just next to the fridge, where the annoying noise seemed to be loudest and you lifted it up to answer.

“Hello?” you said, frowning suspiciously. The reception on the other side was pretty bad, but you could just about make out your sister's voice on the other side.

Steve walked into the kitchen a couple of minutes later, dripping from head to toe and just in time to see you slam the phone back in its original place.

“[First Name]...what happened?” he asked, touching his hands against your shoulders and flinching when you turned to face him, armed with a furious expression.

“Get your clothes on,” you said. “I'll need someone to hold me back.”

“But...why?”

“Because, Steve, I'm going to kill Tony Stark.”

 

TO BE CONTINUED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7lj3cj6nZ1qhyd7wo1_500.png
> 
> [2] Head canon #1 — I seem to remember reading somewhere that Viking brides wore their hair loose with a kind of floral crown on their heads. I can really visualise Asgardian brides doing so too, so Thor knows exactly what the significance is of Jane getting the bouquet. So yeah. Have some sweet Thor action.
> 
> [3] Head canon #2 — Seriously though, I imagine after travelling round India for such a long time Bruce has had his fair share of really hot curries and just doesn't get shocked any more.
> 
> [4] Isn't zip a funny word? I get that it's onomatopoeia but still...Zip. Zip. LOL, just ignore me, I think the dumbest shit while writing


	10. Buried Treasure [Tony]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is part 2 of I Thee Wed and, to clarify, the POV has changed. The [First Name] of this chapter refers to the [Sister] of the previous chapter and vice versa.
> 
> End notes (and the mini fic, which I think Science bros fans and HIMYM fans will appreciate) are the originals from Luna.

Ever since you were a little girl all you wanted was to be just like your big sister. Your sister was tough, smart and kicked the ass of any boy who dared to call her names in the playground. You watched in awe as she intervened whenever your brothers took your doll away and got it back for you, chatted to boys as if it was the most natural thing in the world and explored the most unforgiving environments on the planet on SHIELD's behalf. It was because of your sister that you joined SHIELD in the first place, hoping that one day you too would be able to travel into Antarctica and bring back something so impressive that Nick Fury himself would stop you in the corridor to shake your hand, leaving the male field agents to fight and squabble between themselves over who got to ask you out on a date.  
  
You had never understood why your sister was so aloof when it came to men. She didn't seem to care that most of them felt intimidated by her and, worse, that the majority of them would rather run a mile naked than risk her wrath by asking you out on a date. You went to prom by yourself because nobody dared ask you and graduated high school without ever having a real boyfriend because, if your sister wasn't enough of a threat, your brothers sure as hell were.  
  
You knew they were all just looking out for you, that you were different to them and in their eyes that meant you needed to be protected. Yet still you put on your best heels for work and spent hours on your hair, hopeful that some day a guy would come along that would not only be brave enough to ask you out on a date but was a good guy, the sort of guy that everyone in your family approved of and didn't attempt to frighten away. [Sister] might have been oblivious to the matter of love and romance but that didn't mean you had to be.  
  
[Sister] spent very little time at home for one reason or another. She divided up her time between assignments and SHIELD HQ, occasionally returning to her own apartment to sleep. She came to your family home whenever she had a spare evening, which wasn't too often, so the day she came home and asked if she could borrow some of your clothes because she had a date you worried that you had fallen into some alternate dimension. From what you remembered, [Sister] had been even busier than ever with assignments, so the only way she could possibly have been asked out on a date was if the man in question had some sort of ties with SHIELD. You could think of plenty of men who found your sister attractive, but none who thought of her as date material. You knew you just had to find out more about the mystery guy that she told you next to nothing about, even as she tried on your clothes.  
  
“So what is he like? Does he have a name?” you asked her as she gave you a twirl. She had decided quite early on that she liked an old navy dress of yours that you bought for a job interview but you were having none of it. [Sister] hid them well, but she did have curves and that navy dress looked like something out of a museum.   
  
“His name is Steve,” [Sister] said, wincing at her reflection. You had persuaded her to try on a fitted blouse that would leave her chest teasingly exposed and you could tell she didn't like it. “He's...a little old fashioned.”  
  
“Old fashioned? You mean like Dad?”  
  
“...Yeah, I guess so.”  
  
You had raised your eyebrows at that. You didn't know a single guy at work as old fashioned as your Dad, which you had always counted as a blessing. Your Dad was so behind on the times that he still marvelled at colour television.  
  
“What exactly are you going to do tonight, then?”   
  
“We're going dancing.”  
  
You sniggered at that.  
  
“What, is Steve from the fifties or something?” you asked, your laughter slowing when you saw that your sister didn't smile even once.  
  
“Forties, actually,” she said and your jaw dropped.  
  
Your sister went out dancing in your navy blue dress and you stayed at home, doing the maths in your head. If the guy hadn't been born until 1940 then he would be in his early 70s and old enough to be your grandfather. And what if he had been born earlier than that? You had always wondered about your sister's taste in men, but you had never given much thought to the idea that she might be into drastically older ones.  
  
By the time you got your dress back you had a theory. You knew the big bosses of SHIELD were mostly older men and you also knew that [Sister] had spent a lot of time talking to them at conferences recently because of something she had dug out of the snow on one of her assignments. You guessed that one of them had asked her out dancing and your sister, mindful of both her manners and her career, had accepted to be polite. You felt proud of yourself for deducing it all so easily and decided that you had nothing to worry about after all. If you were right then there would not be a date two.  
  
Except there  _was_. Followed shortly by dates three and four and your Mom inviting him for dinner. It was the longest any guy had stuck around with your sister and you were both worried and intrigued by how things would turn out. When you actually saw the man she was dating your jaw dropped. Steve was old fashioned, but he looked about the same age as your youngest brother, with blonde hair, chiselled muscles and the sort of shy half-smile that up until then you had only ever seen on posters of boy bands.  
  
“I'm pleased to meet you,” he said, shaking your hand firmly. “[Sister] has told me so much about you.”  
  
All you could do when he talked to you was make noises like 'mmm' and 'uhhhh' because you were so distracted by his face and wonder why [Sister] had said he was from the forties. There was no way he could be, unless SHIELD had a TARDIS.  
  
After dinner, when [Sister] called to say she and Steve had gotten home safely, you intercepted the phone call.  
  
“Well?” you snapped.  
  
“Well...what?”  
  
“You know what! Where the hell did you find that guy? He sure as hell ain't from the forties!”  
  
Your sister went very quiet on the other end.  
  
“I...I wanted to tell you, but it's classified information.”  
  
“Wh-You met him at  _work_?? How come I've never seen him before?! I'd definitely remember a face like that-”  
  
“-again, classified information.”  
  
[Sister] had been saying things were classified more often lately and it was really starting to grate on your nerves. As far as you were concerned you both worked for SHIELD and therefore should both have been privy to the same information. You nearly always filled [Sister] in whenever she asked you what you had been up to at work and the fact that she didn't feel obliged to do the same only reinforced the fact that at SHIELD you worked at completely different levels.   
  
You filled out a transfer request form the next morning, placing yourself on the Avengers Initiative alongside your sister. You didn't think you had a hope in hell of getting through since you were basically a rookie agent whose responsibilities extended to making coffee and filing photocopies, but the prospect of guys as easy on the eye as Steve made you more determined than usual.  
  
Fury called you into his office later on and you expected him to ask just what you thought you were doing by applying in the first place, but instead he offered you a secretarial role on the newest Avengers project. He was quite thrilled you had bothered to apply, as most other SHIELD agents were comfortable in their current positions and didn't think to aim higher. He didn't forget to mention that your sister was one of the (direct quote) 'best damn field agents we've ever had'.  
  
You learned the truth about Steve, in many ways, shortly after that. You knew he was dating your sister and that made him well and truly off limits, but that didn't stop you drifting off into romantic fantasies about him or admiring his ass when he walked past your desk. He didn't know very many people at HQ, a number that fell drastically when your sister was busy, so when he saw you there he took the chance to talk to you. You learned about his past, how much he really liked your sister and how he was absolutely not your type. Steve was a gentleman and over thought every word he said in the hopes he didn't offend you to the point where he stuttered over some of the things he said. You wanted a guy with a mischievous streak and Steve didn't have a single one of those in his body.  
  
There was only one guy that both met your quota and was brave enough to flirt with you after finding out who your sister was and that was Tony Stark. You had never had a crush on anyone like you had with him and you could tell he knew. The first time you met, you were in the middle of getting coffee with your sister and Tony had interrupted to start a conversation with your sister, or so you thought.   
  
“Hey, [Sister],” he had said. “I think you left out some crucial information on that last mission.”  
  
“Oh? And what was that?”  
  
“That hot girls work for SHIELD,” was his response, moving closer to you. “Had I known I would have almost certainly signed up sooner. Who is this?”  
  
“She's my sister, [First Name].”  
  
Tony had snorted with laughter at the very thought.  
  
“...And here was me thinking you didn't have a sense of humour. [Sister], I've gotta say, you surprised me. Seriously though, who is this fine young thing and why haven't we been properly introduced?”  
  
“You lay one finger on my sister, Stark, and I promise I will shoot you in the face.”  
  
Tony Stark lowered his sunglasses then and seemed to look at you both for the first time.  
  
“Your sister, huh?”  
  
You made up some excuse to leave [Sister] and Tony alone, rushing to take the elevator and trying to hide the embarrassment from your face. Why did she have to ruin everything? You would have been more than happy to continue flirting with that guy had she given you the chance.  
  
The elevator stopped at the fifth floor and your heart skipped a beat when you saw who it was that was getting inside. He looked a little out of breath, as if he had just been running, but somehow that made him more attractive.  
  
“Mister Stark?” you said, causing him to grin.  
  
“I think we got off on the wrong foot before,” he said, pressing the button to close the elevator doors before reaching out a hand for you to shake. “I'm Tony Stark. Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”  
  
You took his hand and shook it slowly. You couldn't believe he was still talking to you.  
  
“That's an awful lot for one person,” you said, smiling. “You're really brave risking the wrath of my sister.”  
  
Tony laughed out loud.  
  
“She's feisty, I'll give her that, but she's got nothing on me. Anyway, I'm rather used to getting what I want, especially when someone says I can't have it.”  
  
Tony was exactly your type: adventurous and mischievous with a hint of vulnerable. He took you for sushi on your first date and taught you how to use chopsticks, prompting lots of touching and him placing his hands over yours. You learned to drop your food on purpose so he'd touch you more.  
  
The morning of your sister's wedding you found a note under your pillow.  
  
 _[First Name], we're going to search for buried treasure tonight. Wear a bathing suit. - T._  
  
Tony had all but pounced on the chance to have Steve and [Sister]'s wedding on one of his private islands, saying upfront that as part of the Avengers Steve deserved something a little more extravagant than what he was planning, though you knew what he really wanted was to have the upper hand. If the wedding was on his island then he would know its layout off by heart and be able to stay in control of how the evening progressed, which included alone time with you. Your stomach fluttered at the very thought.  
  
You put a bikini on underneath your bridesmaid dress as instructed and spent the rest of the ceremony wondering what he could have planned. Maybe he was going to have a scavenger hunt or take you scuba diving before finding a quiet place to screw you senseless. Whatever it was you just knew it was going to be awesome.  
  
You were genuinely proud as [Sister] said her vows and became Steve's wife, though your attentions kept drifting over to the guy performing the service. Tony hadn't told you about that part, though you forgave the secrecy since he looked incredible standing there in a white suit with the sunset behind him.  
  
After the wedding came the after-party and your initial confusion over why Tony had bothered sailing everyone over on such a huge cruise liner, which could have easily fitted hundreds of people aboard, was cleared as you saw how much alcohol there was on board. Crate upon crate of rum, gin, whiskey and wines you had never heard of were all transported off the ship by staff, followed by barrels of cider with taps attached for easy access and enormous bottles of beers. You hadn't seen that much alcohol in one place since college, but you knew better than to indulge. You didn't know what Tony had planned for you and whether or not it required you to be sober. You didn't enjoy the thought of being drunk for Tony's surprise, so you helped yourself to a milkshake and listened to Bruce's explanation of why milk was better than water at cooling down your mouth following a hot curry. You had to admit he had a point. Some of the food was spicier than you were used to but one sip of your milkshake and you felt completely refreshed, ready for another attempt.  
  
“Witchcraft!” you said gleefully, clapping your hands to Bruce's delight. [1]  
  
The presence of alcohol changed the party dynamics drastically, more specifically, dividing up the teetotals from the party animals. Steve was unable to get drunk thanks to his increased metabolism so your sister didn't drink any alcohol, preferring to stick to soda so that she and her husband were on the same wavelength. You had had the conversation with her a couple of days before sailing out and she had confided in you that the night of the wedding she would be Steve's first.  
  
“First what?” you remembered asking as you applied eye liner.  
  
“You know. His first... _ever_.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“I don't want to ruin that by being drunk or even tipsy when it happens. I want it to be special for him.”  
  
You felt you understood her reasoning when you saw Tony stagger over to Steve and ask him to dance. You had no idea what he had been drinking but it looked like something really strong. Clint and Natasha had started mixing a bizarre concoction of almost everything on offer and you wondered if he had had a swig of that. Even Thor, who had bragged to anyone who listened that drinking copious amounts of mead was an Odinson family tradition passed down for generations, started to laugh even more raucously after demanding a cupful. You felt a little insulted that Tony had decided to just go on and get drunk when he had plans later on with you, but you didn't show it. Instead, you danced a couple of times with Pepper and Darcy, feeling the warmth of the sand under your toes and thinking to yourself that it was the closest you had been to a real vacation in years.  
  
You couldn't help but laugh as your sister intervened in Tony and Steve's dance to Tony's protests. She led Steve away into the night, leaving Tony to watch them forlornly, before shrugging his shoulders and moving to dance with whoever happened to be closest, which was you and Pepper.  
  
“Are you guys having fun or what?” he yelled, waving his hands in the air completely out of rhythm to the music. “I told you I throw the best parties.”  
  
“Tony, how drunk are you?” giggled Pepper, who was bordering on tipsy herself having sampled a glass or two of wine.   
  
“Me?” yelled Tony, waving his hands and shaking his hips. “I'm not drunk at all.”  
  
Pepper laughed out loud at his words but all you could do was stare.  
  
“You're sober?” she said. “Yeah...pull the other one.”  
  
“No, I'm serious,” yelled Tony. “Woooooooooo!”  
  
“Woooooooooooo!” shouted Pepper, giggling in between every syllable.  
  
“Now, how about a dance, [First Name]?”  
  
He wrapped an arm around your waist without warning and dragged you over to the band, motioning for them to change the song to an even more upbeat song. You could just about keep up with the beat, though the music was loud in your ears and blocked everything else out.  
  
“You're really sober?” you yelled and Tony motioned that he couldn't hear you. His lips moved but you couldn't hear a single word he said.   
  
“What?” you shouted. “I can't hear you!”  
  
Tony rolled his eyes and kissed you. He tasted of soda and ice cream and you realised then that he was telling the truth. He really had just been pretending to be drunk with an unnerving amount of skill. You weren't sure if it was because of the music, the surrounding heat or the situation you were in, but the second your lips separated your stomach fluttered uncontrollably and for a couple of seconds you thought your legs were going to buckle underneath you. You glanced over your shoulder to see if anyone had seen you but everyone was far too preoccupied to even glance your way.   
  
Tony took your hand and gave it a tug. He wanted you to go somewhere with him and, now that you knew he was sober, the excitement had set in once again. You followed him across the beach, away from the party and over to an almost silent area of the island where the only noise came from the tide and the occasional exotic bird.  
  
“How did you get so good at that?” you shouted without meaning to, the party music still loud in your ears. “Pretending to be drunk.”  
  
“You almost sound surprised,” he said, examining the layout for something and loosening his tie. “I'll have you know I am an excellent actor.”  
  
You grabbed hold of his shirt and kissed him on the lips, grinning as he held you close and went for more. One hand squeezed your breast and another reached round to unzip your dress, leaving it to fall to the ground around your feet. Tony glanced approvingly at your bikini.  
  
“Now,” he said. “How about a little history lesson?”  
  
You blinked. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a set of keys.  
  
“This island used to be a weapons base, owned by my father,” he said, pressing a button on one of them. “I, of course, inherited it when I inherited Stark Enterprises and refurbished it to suit my own needs. However, there are still a lot of areas on the island left in their original state.”  
  
At the touch of a button, the sea appeared to light up and several stepping stones rose to the surface, leading all the way to a shadowy place that you could not quite see from where you were. Tony took off his jacket and dropped it on the floor next to your dress, taking your hands and leading you to the first stone. You gripped onto him, frightened you might slip, which seemed to amuse him greatly.   
  
“What's the matter, Rapunzel, do you want me to carry you?”  
  
You were about to laugh and say 'no, of course not' when he lifted you up into his arms anyway and hopped, skipped and jumped across each stone as if it was nothing more complex than hopping across cracks in the sidewalk. The stepping stones led to a cave of some sort, tucked away into the cliff face and otherwise hidden from view. Tony let you down as he stepped inside and you took in the musty smell that surrounded you while he pressed the button on his keys a second time to hide the stepping stones from view.  
  
“What's going to happen if anyone finds our clothes?” you said, your words echoing on the walls. Tony shrugged.  
  
“You ever seen Star Wars?” he said, pretending to have a light saber in his hands and making the necessary sounds. “I've been waiting for you, Obi Wan.” [2]  
  
You laughed as he pretended to approach you, light saber in hand.  
  
“We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master,” he said.  
  
“Only a master of nerd.”  
  
Tony clapped a hand against his heart as if you had shot him.  
  
“Well that's not very nice,” he said, grinning widely when you blobbed out your tongue in response. “I might just have to punish you for your insubordination.”  
  
You turned and ran into the cave, navigating yourself in the half light coming from the old fashioned light bulbs that were fixed into the cave walls. Tony gave chase, reaching out and grabbing hold of your bikini fastenings every time you slowed. At some stage he unfastened it entirely and you grabbed hold of your breasts with one hand as your bikini top fell to the floor.   
  
“Come back!” he called, only half serious. “Come here and let me punish you!”  
  
There was a door at the end of the cave passage, made of wood with a brass handle. You threw yourself at it and onto the other side, laughing as Tony caught up to you. You fell silent as you crossed the threshold and took in your surroundings, for it was just like stepping back in time. It appeared to be an old fashioned communications room from as long ago as WW2. There were old maps and pictures on the walls of Uncle Sam promoting guys to join the army, along with a table in the center covered with piles of paperwork. You examined one of them to find faded blueprints for a new kind of machine gun, signed in three places by Howard Stark.  
  
“Now then,” said Tony, stepping towards you. “Where were we?”  
  
You kissed him, needing to touch him and he kissed back, pushing his entire body into you. You backed into one wall, then another, followed by a cupboard with such force that you knew you would bruise in the morning. Ordinarily you would flinch, but all of your senses were focused solely on the man before you, watching hungrily as his shirt trailed to the floor, followed by his belt and trousers.  
  
Tony lifted you up onto the table, shifting one of the piles of paperwork onto the floor in the process. You reached out for him, unsatisfied that you were no longer touching and he leaned over you, his stomach hot against yours as he showered you in kisses once again. He gripped hold of your bikini bottoms and pulled them off, throwing them to the side as if they were completely insignificant. You weren't shy about being naked in front of guys, a by-product of having so many brothers, but when Tony laid eyes on you you couldn't help but blush, especially since he seemed to take such pleasure in the act. He laid kisses along your jawline and throat, moving south towards your collarbone and breasts. You sighed as he paid particular attention to your nipples before roaming even lower towards your stomach.  
  
Every new sensation sent you over the edge in a different way and you felt as if you were flying. You had to grip onto the table with one hand and run your fingers through Tony's hair with the other to stop feeling like you were going to fall and hit your face on the ceiling.   
  
When his tongue flicked over your entrance you had to grip the table with both hands.  
  
“Tony,” you moaned, getting louder as he used his fingers to separate your folds and circled his tongue across your clit. “Oh my God. Oh my God, Tony, don't sto-.”  
  
You leaned your head back and cried out as he slid one finger into you, still paying close attention to your sensitive spot. You had been making coherent noises before; now all you could do was produce a garbled mess of 'Oh-Go-To-Oh!'.  
  
You whined when he let go of you and took your hand, pulling you from the table. You almost collapsed in a heap on the floor and grabbed onto him to steady yourself, giggling as he slammed you into the wall. He lifted you from the floor and you reached down for his underwear, wanting all of him at once. As you did so, your shoulder blade pressed against the wall behind you and you froze as it gave way.   
  
“What's the matt-” Tony began, stopping when an alarm sounded above you and the lights went off, replaced by a second red set, that gave the entire office a strange glow.  
  
“Defcon 3 mode activated,” a robotic voice chimed out. “Defcon 3 engaged.”  
  
The alarm paused then and the hissing sound of several sprinklers emerging from the ceiling broke the silence. The water was icy cold against your skin and you flinched, wriggling out of Tony's arms and trying to make yourself as small as possible to avoid getting soaked.  
  
“Tony,” you said, placing your hands over your ears as the alarm started up once again. “What's Defcon 3?”  
  
“It must be some kind of security mechanism my Dad installed on the island,” Tony yelled back. “Let me take a look at that. I'll try and overload it.”  
  
He examined the area of wall that you had been pressed up against only seconds before, which was decorated by a single poster of Uncle Sam. Tony tore it straight from the wall, revealing a control pad underneath. The buttons were old and glowing various colours, one second orange, the next white, the next red. Tony dusted off the buttons and examined them, before smiling and pressing a combination. For a few seconds nothing happened: the alarm still sounded, the red light still shone, but finally everything fell silent once again and you breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
“Defcon 3 disengaged,” the robotic voice said and Tony stroked his fingers through your hair.  
  
“See, [First Name],” he said. “You need to have more faith in m-”  
  
“Defcon 7 mode activated.”  
  
The alarm was louder this time, higher pitched and the red lights flickered on and off.  
  
“TONY WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!?!?!”  
  
“APPARENTLY I ACTIVATED DEFCON 7.”  
  
A whirring sound started above your heads and you turned to see what was happening, only to wish you hadn't, for machine guns were being lowered from the ceiling and numerous points along the walls. You lunged back towards the door and threw yourself out onto the other side, back into the cave. You didn't care that you were completely naked; it was better than being shot to pieces. Tony followed you somewhat slowly due to his trousers still being round his ankles.   
  
The red lights and alarm carried on all the way out into the cave and the 'BANG' of machine gun fire was loud in your ears, steadily getting louder. You all but gulped in the night air as you emerged out of the cave mouth and collapsed onto your knees. Tony leaned against the cave to catch his breath and rubbed his temples.  
  
“Whew, I need a drink,” he said, watching approvingly as you rolled onto your back. You glanced back towards the main island, taking in the shape of the trees, the glow of moonlight on the sea and the rising sand dunes.  
  
 _Wait._  
  
You blinked.  
  
 _Rising sand dunes?_  
  
You rubbed your eyes and craned your neck to see what was happening on the beach, as you were sure you were imagining it. Several sand dunes were rising up from the surface until they were almost as tall as Tony, breaking apart and separating from one another until you could count at least twenty well defined shapes and many more in the middle of growing.  
  
“What...are those?” you asked, pointing over to them and hoping Tony would laugh and tell you it was just a meteorological oddity and nothing to worry about, but he did nothing of the sort.  
  
“Oh no,” he said and your heart skipped a beat.  
  
“Oh no?”  
  
“Well...I was kind of hoping Dad had stopped production on these,” he said. “Apparently I was wrong.”  
  
“Stopped production on what?”  
  
One of the piles of sand made a 'whrrrrrrrrrr'-ing noise and all of the sand fell to the floor, revealing some sort of robot. Compared to the ones you were used to seeing around SHIELD HQ they were practically Stone Age models, with their wiring clearly visible and their bodywork covered in rust. Spending years hidden underneath a beach had clearly not done them any favours either, for some were missing heads and others entire limbs. The thing that really made your breath catch in your chest, though, was the sight of the guns they were armed with. It hit you then that you were naked on an island in the middle of nowhere surrounded by battle droids and drunk superheroes without a weapon.  
  
 _This is how I die_ , you thought to yourself.   
  
Tony kicked off his trousers and brushed his fingers over the manacles he wore on his wrists, the Iron Man armour covering his almost naked body. You made a sound that resembled the sort of noise a beached whale would make and hid behind a rock as he took flight, catching the attention and bullets of the droids.  
  
You weren't sure how long you hid behind the rock, only that at some stage you were sure you heard a thunderclap coming from the main beach, followed by the roar of a certain huge green guy. Tony was closest to you and you had a complete play by play of their battle; you watched as Tony shot at the droids and they shot back, replaced just as quickly every time a droid was shot down. Sometimes one of the droids would catch sight of you and shoot in your direction, leaving you only seconds to hide behind the rock again.   
  
You wanted to speak to your sister. Just hearing her voice would be enough to calm you down and make you feel brave. It had always been that way, even as kids. When you were too frightened to go on the really big roller coasters [Sister] had been able to make them seem like nothing and, when you had a nightmare and were too embarrassed to tell your parents, [Sister] was the one who taught you to laugh in the face of fear. You knew if you spoke to her things wouldn't seem so bad, but you had no idea how you would do that. Your cell was back on the boat.  
  
You glanced around at your surroundings, taking in the sparse trees that littered the area. You didn't even have a lighter to set off smoke signals. Slowly, your gaze shifted across to Tony's trousers, all but abandoned in the excitement. Tony never went anywhere without a phone, you thought, suddenly convinced that his cell phone had to be in his pocket. His trousers weren't too far away from you and you could probably grab them without having to move very far away from safety.   
  
You sat up onto all fours and stretched out an arm, shifting the sand around one trouser leg so that it was easier to grab. You could have screamed with joy when you felt the hem of one trouser leg against your fingertips and dragged it closer towards you. However, that moment of joy was short lived, for all Tony had in his pocket was handful of glow in the dark condoms, which you threw back into the cave with a huff.  
  
Where else were you supposed to find a phone on such short notice? You glanced across at the battle scene across the water, cursing Tony for not bringing his cell with him. You watched as he shot off the head of one of the droids, only for it to carry on shooting regardless of the way its head bounced across the sand. They might have been old, but you had to hand it to Old Man Stark, they were tough. Even Tony's attacks didn't seem to have made much impact on their numbers, for they were programmed to fight on even when their limbs were missing or their weapons smashed to pieces. You scanned the carnage that littered the beach, your heart skipping a beat when you caught a glimpse of Tony's jacket all but hidden amongst the wreckage. You had forgotten all about it in the excitement of travelling into the cave and the subsequent terror that came as a result. You wondered if Tony's cell phone was in his jacket pocket, rather than his trouser one.  
  
You were tempted to go out and see, but that meant leaving your place of safety and entering the battle. You weren't in the mood for being shot to death by Defcon 7 battle droids and you couldn't see how else it would end. You bit your lip, wondering what your sister would do in such a situation, which was an easy enough conclusion to reach. You had been on the other end of her earpiece while she travelled to Vienna and you knew that her reaction to any situation involving random battle drones consisted of getting a gun and shooting. Tony's jacket was pretty close to the water and you were a strong swimmer. In the dark you could probably get over there, find the phone and return before any of the droids began to shoot at you.   
  
Your stomach churned over and over on itself as you edged towards the water. You felt like you were going to be sick, but you pushed that thought to the back of your mind as you lowered yourself in. You had grazed your skin in several places during your little escapade with Tony and the salt-water stung like crazy, but if anything it just gave you an incentive to move faster. You reached the beach quite quickly and hid behind the growing pile of wreckage while you fumbled through Tony's jacket pocket. Your hands were shaking and you didn't think your heart had ever beat so quickly before; you kept dropping everything back to the floor and struggling to pick it back up.   
  
Tony's phone was in his pocket and you dived behind another rock the second it fell into your hands, putting on the jacket and fastening up all of the buttons. You knew [Sister]'s number off by heart, but she didn't answer.  
  
“[First Name]!” you heard Tony yell. “Look out!”  
  
You curled up into a ball and the approaching battle droid exploded into pieces, its gun landing a couple of feet to your left. Tony landed near you, sending up a spray of sand as he did so, and shot at the other droids that were running your way.  
  
“What are you doing?” he asked. “911 doesn't call out here.”  
  
“Does my sister's room have a phone?” you demanded, scrolling through Tony's contacts.  
  
“Sure,” was Tony's reply. “It's under Labrador.”  
  
“Labrador?”  
  
Tony shot at an advancing droid.  
  
“Yeah, have you seen Steve lately? The guy was made to help blind old ladies cross the road and make puppy dog eyes,” he said. “He's your Labrador in law.”  
  
You sighed loudly, scrolling down to 'Labrador' and dialling. This time your sister did answer and you had never been so happy to hear her voice.  
  
“[Sister],” you shouted above the racket of Tony taking off again and launching a new attack on a set of droids. “Don't get mad, but me and Tony kind of set off the Defcon 7 security settings on the island and now there's battle droids with machine guns and-”  
  
“Did Tony try anything?”  
  
“Well...kind of...but that's not really the-”  
  
“I'll be right there!”  
  
The line went dead seconds later and you sat there staring at the phone. She had gotten pissed for completely the wrong reasons yet somehow the knowledge that she was coming made you feel so much better. You didn't feel so scared and vulnerable any more and you reached out to grab the gun that the exploded droid had dropped.  
  
When Steve came running across the beach some time later he found you and Tony polishing off the rest of the droids, Tony in his Iron Man armour and you in Tony's white jacket, gun in hand and laughing maniacally.   
  
“Steve,” you greeted him, watching in awe as he used his shield to take down the remaining few. “I've never been so happy to see you!”  
  
Steve looked at the gun in your hand and gave you that half smile that drove other women weak at the knees.  
  
“I don't know, you seem to be doing pretty well,” he said. “[Sister] is on her way here. There was more of those...things....on the main beach and it got pretty crazy. Thor took down quite a few of them but Bruce got hit in the face by a flying arm and...it didn't end well...”  
  
Tony landed and the Iron Man armour seemed to melt off his body, leaving him half naked once again. Steve blushed when he noticed the state of undress you were both in and ran his fingers through his hair awkwardly, trying hard not to make eye contact. You were so high on adrenaline that you didn't even think to be embarrassed about getting caught in such a state.   
  
That all changed, though, when you saw the jet ski approaching with your sister on the back. She looked pissed, even more so when she saw you wearing nothing but Tony's jacket, revving the engine and wielding a grenade launcher. You had no idea where she had gotten it from, only that she was pointing it at Tony. Tony seemed to be thinking the same thing, for he activated his armour again and shot hundreds of feet into the air.  
  
Steve hesitantly placed a hand on your shoulder, retracting it when you turned to face him.  
  
“So...um...they're going to be a while,” he said. “Why don't we get ice cream?”  
  
You watched as your sister shot at Tony, missing by a matter of inches and creating an enormous explosion that looked just like a firework.  
  
“GET BACK HERE STARK! I'M NOT THROUGH WITH YOU!”  
  
“GET RID OF THE GRENADE LAUNCHER AND I'LL CONSIDER IT!”  
  
 **BOOM**  
  
“HOW ABOUT HELL NO?!”  
  
You smiled and walked back towards the main beach with Steve.  
  
“Ice cream sounds good,” you said.  
  
  
 **EPILOGUE**  
  
[Sister] and Tony returned a few days later, battered and bruised and each as angry as the other. You had no idea what your sister had done to Tony in the days she had spent pursuing him, but he had a brand new nickname for her — Jacuzzi Ruiner — which he said with every ounce of venom he had available.   
  
You couldn't suppress your giggles as all of the wedding guests told them what an amazing wedding it had been and how they had especially enjoyed the robot training exercise, as if it had all been a part of the preparations. Fury clapped Tony on the back and congratulated him on his excellent team-bonding idea, ignoring the pained expression he gained in response and asking how he had come up with it. Thor proclaimed in his usual booming tones that an Asgardian wedding was not considered complete until blood was shed and Natasha told everyone none-too-humbly that her final score of defeated droids was a million times better than Clint's, prompting him to protest that she had cheated. Jane and Darcy had made a fortune in bets, as when the robots appeared on the scene they had started to place bets on who would take the most down. Bruce was the overall winner, though he had gotten distracted in Hulk form with chasing down the band. Your own family were convinced that it was all some bizarre alcohol fantasy.   
  
You left a note underneath Tony's pillow that morning.  
  
 _Same again? X_  
  
His face at breakfast was priceless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Yes, Bruce is hitting on her here. *Pinches his cheeks*. And the milk thing is true. Try it ;D  
> [2] Only made that reference so I could make this reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQng5RjNVGk THERE NEEDS TO BE A FIC WHERE BRUCE AND TONY HAVE THIS CONVERSATION. THINK ABOUT IT. IN FACT I'M JUST GOING TO WRITE IT HERE.
> 
> “She's never seen Star Wars!” Bruce was shocked. No. Shocked was not the word. Horrified was more like it. “Tony, the only people in the universe who have never seen Star Wars are the characters in Star Wars and that's because they lived 'em, Tony. They lived the Star Wars.”
> 
> Tony took a swig of his coffee.
> 
> “You need to calm down,” he said, for all the good it did.
> 
> “Look, I told you that you didn't know this girl well enough,” said Bruce. “What if you show it to her and she doesn't like it?”
> 
> “It's just a movie!”
> 
> ~~~~~~~~2 HOURS OR SO LATER~~~~~~~~
> 
> Tony slumped back against the couch as the ending credits of A New Hope lit up the screen of his 70 inch plasma. He glanced across at Bruce to find that his friend was watching the screen with a kind of intensity he had never seen in him before. 
> 
> “If she doesn't like this movie I'm never talking to her again,” he said, reaching for the popcorn bowl.
> 
> “Wanna watch it again?” asked Bruce, his eyes bright and hopeful.
> 
> “Yes,” said Tony, knowing full well he had a meeting in only half an hour. It didn't seem to matter so much, though, while he and Bruce air guitared the Imperial March theme that played on the DVD menu.


	11. 99 Cents [Thor]

You were always happy to finish work, though never so much as when you knew you were meeting up with your boyfriend right afterwards. Your boyfriend looked like a swimsuit model, with chiselled muscles and long blonde hair and, while everyone else would say he was a little...well...odd, you thought he was incredibly sweet. He never called you 'baby' or 'doll', instead referring to you as a 'fair maiden' and kissing you on the hand by way of hello. Sure, he had trashed several of the diner's cups for no apparent reason other than the fact that he wanted another cup of coffee and maybe he had walked into the kitchens without being invited so that he could 'thank all of the creators of this fine feast' but you forgave him for that when he took you by the hand and asked you how you fared. He was a little different, but what made him different made him wonderful.

All of your previous boyfriends had gotten annoyed with the obnoxious bacon smell that followed you everywhere you went once you finished work and got bored of waiting for you to put out, dumping you at about the three week mark and appearing in the diner with their new girlfriends shortly afterwards, acting as if you were a stranger when they took your order. Thor buried his face in your hair whenever you finished work, claiming that you 'smelled of things he liked to eat' so enthusiastically that you guessed he approved and, while he often implied that he had thought about sleeping with you, he never outright said that he expected it of you.

You stepped outside the diner and glanced at your watch, sitting down on the usual bench. You had been with Thor for four and a half weeks and the only problem you had observed with your relationship was your boyfriend's ability (or lack thereof) to tell the time and even that wasn't entirely serious. Sometimes he would show up hours late but one flash of that enormous grin of his and an explanation of why he was late and all was forgiven. Thor could make anything interesting.

“So you went to the supermarket?” you asked him once.

“Not so super, fair lady, and only a market in the feeblest of terms,” was his response. “They did not have any Rakfisk.”

You never mentioned to him that you had no idea what Rakfisk was.

You had bought a slice of cake with you for while you waited and had a nibble when you sat down. It was a simple jam sponge but you hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast and that alone made it taste incredible. 

Thor had told you that he and a few friends were going to the zoo that day, so you had a feeling he would be even later than usual. You had been surprised to learn that there were no tigers or giraffes in Asgard and you ended up buying several picture books to show him what various animals were so that he was not completely overwhelmed by the sight of them. He seemed to particularly enjoy pictures of monkeys, pointing to them and declaring that 'this one bears a likeness to an ale mistress with whom I once quarrelled over a bucket of mead'. 

“Fear not, sweet lady, I shall not forget your toil while I am out amusing myself,” he said the night before. “I shall bring you a magnificent gift from this place they call a 'zoo'.”

“You don't have to do that,” you had replied. “Just tell me all about it afterwards.”

Thor had, however, been insistent and you were a little curious about what he was going to bring for you. Somehow he didn't seem the type to buy fridge magnets. You took a second bite of your cake and laughed to yourself. Whatever it was, it was going to be a nice surprise.

For a moment you thought you heard a trumpeting sound further up the street, though you passed that off as your imagination. Not so much the sirens that followed it, however, or the sight of an enormous elephant trundling up the street with your boyfriend on its back.

“[First Name]!” he called to you. “I have returned from that which they call a 'zoo'.”

A sarcastic retort rested on your tongue but you were unable to make it. 

“Today has been such a merry day,” Thor carried on. “The Man of Iron took me round all of the exhibitions and inside to meet some of your magnificent Midgardian creatures. It was my intent to bring you a goblet back but the merchant informed me that they cost 99 cents, which I do not have, so instead I brought you a noble steed.”

People were filing out of the diner at the sight of the elephant in the middle of the road. Neither the elephant nor Thor seemed to care about this. The elephant lifted up the leg that was closest to you and prodded you in the stomach with its trunk. You hesitated before setting one foot on the outstretched leg, holding onto the trunk for dear life as it lifted you up towards Thor. Thor wrapped his arms around your waist and leaned over your shoulder to take a sip of your coffee.

“It is my belief that he already has an owner, for we were chased for many miles, but your metal Midgardian horses were no match for this fine beast,” he said, clapping a hand against the elephant's rump. “Onward, grey beast of Africa!”

The elephant trumpeted its approval and started to move once again, you leaning into Thor and Thor burying his face in your neck. You knew that any normal person would bring you a poster or a cuddly toy and you would have to return the elephant eventually, but that didn't matter. 

Your boyfriend's quirkiness was the reason you loved him.

 

 


	12. A Thousand Words [Bruce]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for implied domestic abuse.

As far as SHIELD members went, you liked to think you were pretty high up on the food chain. You put Fury in his place when the situation required it, spoke to the big bosses on his behalf and made certain decisions by yourself. That's not, however, to say that you were beyond casual discipline if you ever put a foot out of line. In the last week alone you had been called to his office more times than you cared to count. As the acting head of the Electronics Development division you were constantly running back and forth from his office to yours apologising for explosions, asking for further funding and bringing him updates on current developments. 

This time was different, though. Fury sat at his desk, completely incapable of looking at you, let alone saying anything coherent, all while Maria sat sniggering in the corner. You were starting to wish you had never said anything and just left them in the dark, though of course, the best ideas only ever come when it's too late.

When you let slip that you were more than a little bit attracted to Bruce Banner everyone had something to say about it. Everyone warned you away from him, telling you that his temper was the stuff of legends and you would do better going after someone less dangerous. It was far too tempting to tell them all where to stick their opinions and friendly advice, especially since Bruce was one of the calmest, most relaxed men you had ever had the pleasure of meeting. He worked hard at everything he put his mind to and, unlike half the men in your division, actually cared about making progress. What's more, since he started working with you, SHIELD's systems had improved drastically.

Even Bruce himself warned you that dating him wasn't a good idea. 

“So, I was wondering,” you said to him one evening, when everyone else had gone home, leaving just the two of you in the development room. “After this we could get something to eat somewhere.”

Bruce had had goggles on and a soldering iron in one hand, so he didn't reply straight away.

“What, you mean like a date?” he asked, as the circuit board in front of him started to smoke.

You had known since you met him that you were attracted to Bruce and, as time went by, had picked up on some none-too-subtle signals from him. He blushed when you were around, stuttered more than usual and had dropped more than one piece of equipment. He was too shy to make the first move but you weren't.

“That is usually what people mean when a man and woman go out by themselves,” you said, leaning over to examine his handiwork. “If you don't want to, it's no problem.”

“Oh, no, I want to,” said Bruce, taking off his goggles and climbing out of his chair. “Believe me...I want to.”

“Sounds to me like there's a 'but' there,” you said.

“Not so much a 'but' as another guy. I know Fury must have warned you about him.”

“He did.”

“And you still think it's a good idea?

“Of course I do. I want to make you happy, Bruce, now how about you let me?”

The day you and Bruce walked into HQ hand in hand everyone stared and made it clear that they had an opinion on how badly it would end, ranging from something as simple as you and Bruce never speaking again to you getting ripped to shreds by the infamous 'other guy'. You started to wish you had a dollar for every time someone asked you how things were between you and Bruce or offered you some friendly advice. As far as you were concerned you didn't need it.

That's why it was so embarrassing walking round HQ with a black eye. People stopped and stared in the corridors, some more discreetly than others, and you knew that by nightfall everyone would have a theory about how it had gotten there. Your assistant could barely take her eyes off it when she brought you your morning coffee to the point where she spilled most of the pot around your mug rather than inside it. You pretended not to notice and engrossed yourself in a pile of paperwork that you were sure hadn't been there the night before.

“Oh and, um, this came for you, Agent [Last Name],” said your assistant, lifting a heart shaped box onto the table. It was wrapped in red paper and tied with a ribbon and, when you lifted it, a card fell off. You knew exactly who it was from but you decided to humour yourself anyway.

_To [First Name], I'm so sorry. Bruce x_

You sighed and closed the card again, placing it on top of your memo pad so that you had room to open the mysterious package. It really was a big box and you half dreaded what was on the inside. You weren't sure how you were ever going to look at Bruce the same way again and elaborate gifts only reinforced that feeling. 

It turned out to be an enormous box of chocolates, all the same size and shape and iced with the same words that Bruce had written on your card. It didn't stop there. You stepped out for lunch only to find a dozen red roses on your desk when you got back, followed by a cuddly toy when you returned from filing paperwork.

It was only a matter of time before Fury called you into his office. In fact, when Maria came to tell you he wanted to speak with you your response was to wonder out loud what had taken him so long. You were sure the news of your black eye must have been halfway around HQ within an hour of your arrival.

“I'll be honest with you,” said Nick, glaring at your eye. “When I heard you looked as if you'd gone nine rounds with a heavyweight champion I laughed it off. You're not the kind of girl who lets a guy shove her round, but then Maria here tells me the rumours are true. Tell me, [First Name], what would you do in my situation?”

Your face flushed a hot crimson. 

“I...suppose...I'd try and get to the bottom of it, sir,” you said.

“Damn straight! So, explain to me how,” Nick indicated your eye, “this happened.”

You bit your lip, unsure of what to say. The truth was mortifying, but the alternative was worse. 

“Okay,” you said. “So...”

You and Bruce had worked late the night before, following an interesting hypothesis put forward earlier that day. You enjoyed working late with him, not just because he was so much more confident at bouncing ideas around the room when it was just you and him but because he would flat out kiss you when you praised him. He never dared do so when anyone else was around.

You held hands in public and kissed when you were alone, but so far that was as far as you had gone. All until the previous night, that is. You had gone to make coffee and returned to find Bruce frantically typing at the computer, revising one of your programmes and focussing so intensely that he barely even notice you re-enter the room, jumping up with a start when you placed his cup of coffee on the desk. His movement caused the desk to wobble and the hot liquid spilled over the edge and onto his crotch. 

“Oh my god,” you had said, reaching for a tissue and dabbing at the coffee soaked area without paying much attention to its location on his anatomy. “Are you all right?”

Bruce had winced at the feel of the hot coffee against one of the more delicate areas of his body and didn't seem to trust himself to make a noise, as he scrunched up his face and bit his lip. 

“Mmm-hmmmmm,” he mumbled, prompting you to rub harder.

It was only when you finished scrubbing that you became aware of the solid erection underneath your fingers and you retracted them as if you had been the one burned. Suddenly you weren't sure if Bruce's moans while you scrubbed at his trousers had all been ones of pain. 

“Oh...” you said, blushing furiously and suddenly speechless. “I, um...”

“Awkward,” said Bruce. 

“Yyyep,” was your response. 

The rest was a blur. At some stage you ended up discarding your blouse and sitting on your knees in front of Bruce with his throbbing member in your mouth, all while he thrust to a silent rhythm and moaned at the top of his lungs like it was one of the happiest moments of his life. 

You could tell he was close by the way he gripped hold of your hair and increased his pace. He told you he loved you, you slipped his erection out of your mouth to return the sentiments...

...and he came.

In your eye, no less.

You hadn't known until that day that the salt content in semen was so high, or so concentrated, but you certainly learned your lesson. All of a sudden you couldn't see in one eye and the pain...you had never known anything like it. It was like someone had shoved a searing hot poker in your eye and no amount of blinking or crying was making it go away.

“Shit,” you heard Bruce say, followed by his zipper being fastened. Seconds later, he was cupping your face and softly brushing his fingers through your hair. 

“I'm so sorry, [First Name],” he said. “I'll go and get a wet towel, so stay here, okay.”

You didn't see him leave, though you did wonder where he expected you to go half dressed, half blind and with ejaculate all over your face. You reached out and got to your feet using the table leg as a guide, tracing your fingers along each of the edges so you knew which to avoid. You couldn't remember whereabouts in the room you were, but you did know that there was a small sink in the corner and you took a few steps to the side, hands out and feeling out for anything. 

Your heart jumped in your chest when you felt cold metal under your fingertips and you squeezed on it, hoping to feel the contours of a tap, with which you could rinse your face. It wasn't a tap, though, it was a door handle and it turned as you squeezed it, followed by a heavy, slamming pain to the side of your head.

“[First Name], [First Name]! I didn't know you were on the other side, I'm so sorry!”

He had apologised as he rubbed over your face with the towel, as he finished off the programming and said goodbye for the evening. You told him it wasn't necessary, as after your headache receded you were more than capable of seeing the funny side, but he wouldn't have it. 

And so it was that you sat in Fury's office, waiting for his reaction to the reason why you had a black eye and Bruce was showering your desk with gifts. Maria thought it was the funniest thing she had ever heard and Nick...you didn't know what Nick thought. 

That evening you laid your head on your lover's chest and he kissed you on the cheek. You had half a mind to tell him that you had told Nick the complete unabridged truth, but you knew he would probably die of embarrassment, so instead you pretended nobody had said anything about your eye. Fury had the ability to make you feel like a little girl in over sized clothes, but when you were with Bruce you remembered you were all woman, capable of making your own decisions and mistakes, regardless of what anyone else thought. Sparing him the embarrassment of knowing your boss was fully aware of what had conspired between you two was a small price to pay.

 

 


	13. It's Always Gonna Come Right Back To This [Tony]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a direct sequel to 'Half Measures'. The notes are the originals from Luna.

You tried several times before going to bed but in the end you never got through to Tony. You supposed you should have expected it, considering that even you had changed your phone number after having Maria. Following Tony's miraculous return from Afghanistan he was bound to have been contacted by journalists left, right and centre, all wanting his side of the story. The first step you would take in his situation would be to change your number.  
  
Over the days that followed, you tried everyone else's number, but they either didn't answer, had changed their number or been replaced and consequently knew about as much about the current state of affairs within the company as you did. You left voice mail messages whenever you got answer machines, hoping that you would get called back eventually.  
  
A couple of days later you went grocery shopping with Maria in tow. Ordinarily you went while Maria was at school, but you had spent so long contacting all of your old work associates that you had completely run out of time. Maria remained blissfully unaware of your efforts and, while you decided between one jar of cheap and cheerful pasta sauce and another, she gazed up at the Iron Man keychains that had grown incredibly popular recently, along with Iron Man everything else.  
  
“Mommy,” she said, breaking the silence as if she had come to some sort of final solution.   
  
“Yes dear,” you said, choosing tomato and garlic sauce on the grounds that it might actually taste of something other than the water you'd used to cook the pasta.   
  
“I need one,” said Maria, pointing up at the key chains.  
  
“Oh? And why's that?” you asked, slipping the jar of sauce into your trolley.  
  
“Reasons.”  
  
You raised an eyebrow and took a key chain off the shelf to examine it in more detail. It was a small replica of the Iron Man suit, with a button on the back that activated a whrrrrrr-ing noise and lit up the blue core in the centre of its chest. You winced when you saw the price tag.  
  
“Honey, you don't even have any  _keys_ ,” you reasoned, for what it was worth.  
  
“When I'm president I'll have the keys to the White House.”  
  
Maria was still convinced she was going to be president, even moreso when Tony Stark started to prevent war using his Iron Man technology. She still drew weapon designs, but she also wrote out peace treaties to countries you had never heard of, offering to call off Iron Man in exchange for ludicrous amounts of cash. In a way you were dreading the moment she finally met Tony.  
  
You slipped the key chain back on the shelf and knelt down to your daughter's level.  
  
“I tell you what,” you said. “When you get elected president the first thing I'll do is buy you one of these, but for now you're going to have to accept an I.O.U, okay?”  
  
Maria considered it for a few seconds and then nodded.  
  
“Deal,” she said and you rose to your feet, savouring your rare moment of victory. Your cell started to vibrate in your pocket as you did so and you placed a hand on Maria's head as you reached to answer it. Maybe it was work calling you in for extra time, you reasoned, you knew that you had told your boss over and over that the only time you were available was when Maria was at school or at a party, but he still called you up occasionally to check if that was still the case.   
  
“Hello,” you said, moving to put a tin of plain spaghetti hoops into the trolley, changing it to Iron Man ones after catching Maria's expression.  
  
“[First Name]...is that you?”  
  
The sound quality was crappy but you could have picked out that voice from a crowd of millions.  
  
“Happy!” you said, resisting the urge to scream with glee. [1] During your time as Tony's girlfriend you had been on incredibly good terms with his bodyguard, Happy, to the point where you were on first name terms. Happy had been like a dorky older brother to both you and Tony and the fact that he had called you back at all was a good sign.  
  
“[First Name], it is you...wow, I thought it was a joke at first when I got your message...”  
  
“No joke, Happy, it really is me,” you said, laughing out loud and pushing your trolley further along the aisle. “So, how's things?”  
  
“Ahhh, you know, same old, same old. Never mind about me, what about you? We've all been so worried about you, [First Name]. Tony even sent out search parties all the way around Manhattan, said that whatever it was he had done to upset you couldn't possibly be anything a simple apology wouldn't fix,” said Happy, talking so quickly that he stumbled over some of his words. “What happened, [First Name]?”  
  
Maria passed you a tin of tomatoes from the bottom shelf. Tomatoes and sweetcorn were her two favourite things in the world because when she put them together on her plate she could pretend she had made an edible Iron Man suit.  
  
“Obadiah happened,” you said simply, taking the tin and putting it in the trolley.   
  
“Listen [First Name],” said Happy after a short silence. “You and Tony, you were good together and he wasn't the same after you left. Obadiah's gone now, so why don't you drop by for a visit some time...in fact...are you free in a couple of weeks? Tony's having a birthday party at his place and it would be awesome if you could come. The old gang back together again!”  
  
You laughed at the memory of some of the idiotic stuff you, Tony, Happy and Rhodey had gotten up to five years before. You and Rhodey had always been the voices of reason, while Tony was absolutely the ringleader and Happy would go along with anything he suggested. It all seemed so long ago, worlds apart from the new life you had grown accustomed to.  
  
Tony always threw an enormous party for his birthday. The first time you missed it you had been heavily pregnant and watched the clock all evening, wondering what canapés would be on offer, which music would be playing and who would have just arrived. It gave you small comfort as you knew you would not be there, sampling the food and nodding your head to the beat. You were counting the days until your waters broke and trying to convince the guys at work that you weren't about to pop so that you could squeeze in some extra overtime. In subsequent years you were too busy changing dirty diapers, cooking dinner and reading bedtime stories to spend the evening brooding over what was happening miles away.  
  
“I...uh...”  
  
“Oh, come on, [First Name], it'll be fun!”  
  
You supposed it  _had_  been a while since you had a night out and your parents were always bugging you to let them have Maria over. You rarely took them up on it as you didn't want to take them for granted and you genuinely didn't have much of a social life, so you doubted there would be a problem with the arrangement. The irrational overemotional part of you wanted nothing more than to take Maria to meet her Daddy but your logical half knew better than to indulge in that idea. Tony's parties were hardly child friendly and it would enough of a shock to his system that you even went in the first place. It was hardly fair on Maria or Tony to shove them into each other's lives without fair warning. You needed time alone with the Stark CEO to ease him in gently.  
  
“Sure,” you said, your stomach fluttering at the prospect of a party and clothes and Tony.  
  
 _You'll be getting one hell of a present this year, Tony._  
  
As expected, your Mom was more than enthusiastic at the prospect of having Maria over for that weekend, especially when she learned that you were going to finally tell the father. You had told her it was a guy from Stark Enterprises and it was complicated but nothing beyond that. You knew she wasn't born yesterday and probably had her suspicions but if she did she never mentioned them to you, which you were very grateful for. Instead she would smile and nod whenever you made some comment to the effect of 'just like her Dad' or 'I can never figure out what she inherited from me'. It was probably a good thing your Mom had never met Tony, as if she had she would have been in no doubts about the identity of Maria's sire.  
  
You didn't tell your parents about your pregnancy until the day after you gave birth, never intending to tell them at all. They had been so proud of you when you got the job in Stark Enterprises that you didn't have the heart to throw it back in their faces or the courage to face their disappointment. Whenever they called you, you pretended you were still in New York, lying about all of the things you had been up to that day and the people you'd met. Once your mother called you, asking if you would be able to house a relative of yours for a couple of days while she attended a conference and it was so difficult for you to think up a good lie that you almost told her the truth right there and then. You weren't in your New York apartment at all, debating which shoes would go best with your outfit and preparing your morning coffee with a ludicrously expensive coffee maker, courtesy of your billionaire boyfriend. You were living miles away, with a swollen belly and cockroaches crawling up the walls.  
  
You had managed to convince yourself that you didn't need anyone and the baby was your cross to bear, but that all changed when they put Maria in your arms. She was so small and you were terrified that you would break her just by holding her wrong. You had called your Mom in tears, telling her what happened and begging her to come. She was there within a couple of hours, along with your father, and they held their first grandchild for the first time. They were both furious with you but one look at Maria and they softened, choosing to coo rather than yell.  
  
Your parents had a ranch not a million miles away from where you lived and it didn't take much persuasion to get Maria to pack her favourite toys and crayons ready for the weekend stay. Your Dad was in the midst of teaching her how to ride and she loved pretending that she was a princess and the ranch was her kingdom. This was all before her obsession with Iron Man and you were looking forward to seeing the Iron Man themed kingdom she was bound to design for you.  
  
“See Mommy,” you could imagine her saying. “This is what will happen when I get the White House. Firstly, it won't be white any more, I'll paint it red and yellow and have water slides instead of stairs.”  
  
You dropped Maria off with your parents the Friday before Tony's party. You were starting to feel nervous by that point, especially when it came to picking out a dress. You had sold a lot of your designer dresses to help pay off bills or make room for Maria's baby things, leaving you with only a few that you had been unable to part with for sentimental reasons. Tony had loved buying you dresses, claiming that the only thing better than seeing you in them was how good they looked on his bedroom floor. You settled on a silky cream number that you were more than a little bit smug about still being able to fit into, accompanied by shoes you had paid for with your first ever Stark Enterprises pay cheque. You hoped they caught Tony's attention just like they had when you first wore them.  
  
Maria ran straight into the stables with your Dad the second you let her out of the car, leaving you alone with your Mom, who took the opportunity to talk with you.  
  
“You're sure about this?”  
  
“He has to know. They both do. Maria's going to ask questions one day and I'd rather they be answered now than when she's sixteen with Daddy issues.”  
  
Your Mom sighed and hugged you.  
  
“I hope you know what you're doing,” she said. “For both of your sakes.”  
  
“I'll pick her up Sunday,” you said, choosing not to say the words really on your mind.  
  
 _I hope so too._  
  
The drive to Manhattan was long, punctuated by bathroom breaks at various diners. You were puffy-eyed and exhausted when you finally arrived at the cheap hotel room you'd booked. Happy had offered you his sofa when he learned you were out of town, but you had declined on the grounds that it might give people (and by people, you meant Tony) the wrong idea. You were glad of that decision when you were able to throw your bags into a corner and sleep for the rest of the evening without worrying about seeming unsociable. Before you went to bed you called your Mom and asked her to put Maria on so you could say goodnight.  
  
“Hey Monkeyface,” you said when you heard her voice. “Are you being good for Grams and Grandpa?”  
  
“Of course, Mommy,” was her reply. “Me and Grams made peanut butter cookies and Grandpa said they were yummy!"  
  
You remembered making peanut butter cookies with your Mom whenever you were too hyper to do anything else. When you ran riot around the ranch: peanut butter cookies. Whenever you were in a bad mood and decided it would be wildly entertaining to let the horses out of their stalls: peanut butter cookies. The fact that your Mom had made them already spoke volumes. Your Dad didn't even like peanut butter cookies but he pretended to enjoy them just to keep the peace.  
  
“What are you up to now?”  
  
“I'm watching some clips of the Stark Expo with Grandpa.” [2]  
  
“Oh? Does anything stand out to you?”  
  
“Yes, my weapons are better. These ones don't even have lasers.”  
  
“They tried, honey, that's the important thing.”  
  
“Yeah, Mommy, but mine are  _still_  better.”  
  
She sounded so much like Tony when she said that that you had to double take. You had heard Tony make similar statements before when comparing business with other weapons companies, leaning back in his swivel chair and taking a smug sip of whiskey.  
  
The next morning you called Happy to get an idea of times and places to be. He said he'd pick you up before the party started so that you could have some alone time with Tony, which (direct quote) 'we all know you need'. You couldn't deny that. You felt as if it had been a thousand years since you last saw Tony and had his undivided attention. You wondered if he had changed too; if he was more mature or just the same.  
  
You put hours aside to get ready, expecting to make mistake after mistake after mistake and you spent so long in front of the mirror adjusting your dress and make up that when you finally stepped back to look at the final product you barely recognised yourself. Your boobs were bigger and your stomach wasn't quite as flat as it had been, but other than that nobody would have guessed you were a single Mom whose usual everyday attire consisted of comfy shoes and an oversized flannel shirt.   
  
Happy took in a sharp intake of breath when he saw you. Save for a few more inches round the middle he hadn't changed a bit since the last time you saw him.  
  
“[First Name],” he said. “Wow...you...I mean...wow.”  
  
You smiled and gave him a twirl before climbing into his car. Your own car had been overtaken by toys, crumbs and nursery rhymes so it was quite strange getting into one that had never had a child inside it. Everything seemed to gleam and Happy had the stereo on with up to date music that you could never play in front of Maria, no matter how many words were blanked out. Happy belted himself in while _Starships_ played in the background [3] and you nodded your head along to the rhythm.  
  
You hadn't been to Tony's apartment for such a long time that when you saw it over the horizon you felt so nauseous that you thought you were going to be sick. It was bigger than you remembered, no doubt extended, with a crystal clear swimming pool and artificial garden. Pepper had always been fond of azaleas, claiming that they looked neat and tidy, so you weren't surprised to find a couple of pink azalea bushes dotted around the place. You trailed your fingers over one of them as you climbed out of the car and smiled to yourself when you realised it was made of silk. Typical Tony, turning his back on the real thing because he could have an artificial one that was more expensive.  
  
Despite how early you were, a few people were all ready dotted round the place. Caterers and decorators walked in and out of the glass doors, adding the final touches and signing things off on their clipboards. Happy took your hand and squeezed it.  
  
“You ready?” he asked.  
  
The idea of walking in there after such a long time and facing Tony had all seemed so easy before, but now that you were standing there about to go in, you were incredibly tempted to hijack Happy's car and forget the whole stupid idea. You took a deep breath and nodded, remembering all of the drawings of Iron Man that Maria had done for you and each heartbroken voice mail message Tony had left. They needed each other more than they knew.  
  
You helped yourself to a glass of champagne when you stepped inside and stood in the corner, taking in everybody's face. You didn't recognise half of them and they looked at you as if wondering who had let you in. If you hadn't arrived with Happy then they would almost certainly have kicked you out. You smirked at their ignorance and took a sip of champagne, becoming aware of voices approaching.  
  
“What is it, Happy?”   
  
“You'll see!”  
  
The second voice belonged to Happy and the first made you tremble. It was Tony. Tony, right there in the same room, breathing the same air as you after so long. You stared at your shoes, feeling like a little lost child at a birthday party, only to steal a glance at the approaching pair.   
  
Tony was thinner than you remembered, paler too, but other than that he had barely physically changed. Happy was leading him in your direction, followed by Pepper and a girl you didn't know. She was pretty, with bright red hair and perilously high heels — exactly Tony's type, you thought bitterly. Tony did not seem impressed by Happy's efforts, scanning his surroundings suspiciously and freezing on the spot when he saw you. It was almost as if he had seen a ghost.  
  
“Right,” said Happy, clapping his hands together. “Pepper, Natalie, everyone, these two need to be alone.”  
  
Nobody moved, so Happy clapped his hands together again, saying 'shoooo!' at the top of his lungs.   
  
“Wait!” Tony shouted, causing everyone to turn back. “I have no secrets from any of you. Whatever it is [First Name] here has to say to me she can say in front of everyone.”  
  
Everyone's eyes were on you and Pepper pushed her way to the front. You had gotten on well when you worked in accounting and she was possibly the closest thing you had had to a female friend.  
  
“Tony, I don't think-” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder that he subsequently shrugged off.  
  
“What brings you here?”  
  
His words were cold and his tone even colder. You practically shivered.  
  
“I-I'm here to see you,” you said, trying to sound like you had missed the callousness of his words. “Happy told me you were having a party and-”  
  
“Oh,” said Tony, sipping his drink. “Oh, I see. And last year and the year before that, it didn't cross your mind to show up?”  
  
“Tony,” Pepper said, in a warning tone.  
  
You had seen this behaviour in Tony before, whenever he dressed down rival weapons companies or employees whenever they did something wrong. He never acted like that with his close friends, though and absolutely not with you, so you wondered why he was trying to humiliate you in such a way.   
  
“I-things were complicated Tony,” you said, holding back from screaming 'I was having your baby you jerk', since that would not help matters.   
  
“Complicated? What the hell happened that was so  _complicated_  you couldn't even answer your phone or return my calls?”  
  
There was pain in his words and you flinched. He was acting like a wounded animal, baring his teeth at everyone and everything.  
  
“Tony,” you said, reaching out a hand towards his arm. “Listen to me. All I ever wanted was to call you, to tell you.”  
  
“Tell me what?” Tony asked, moving out of reach. “If you really wanted to call me you  _would_  have done. Now, if you don't mind, I have a party to host.”  
  
He walked off into the crowd and his admirers followed, leaving Pepper and the red-headed Natalie behind. Natalie was looking at Pepper with inquiring eyes, no doubt completely confused about what had just transpired, but Pepper wasn't in any mood for answering questions.[4]  
  
“Natalie, keep an eye on him,” she said. “Me and [First Name] need to talk.”  
  
Pepper led you outside and onto the patio on the other side of the house. You had fond memories of the salacious deeds you and Tony had performed on the sun loungers, but it all felt like a lifetime ago, as if they were somebody else's memories. The second you sat down on the cold stone of the patio you began to sob and rifled through your purse for a tissue. Pepper sat down next to you and passed you one, which you accepted gratefully.   
  
The first day you took Maria to kindergarten she didn't want you to leave her behind and had followed you, sobbing at the top of her lungs, clinging onto you whenever you took her back and turned to leave. When you picked her up later on, she told you she didn't love you and refused to talk to you for the rest of the day. She didn't know, of course, that as you drove to work you turned up the radio and bawled your way through most of the songs. It was all you could do to prevent yourself turning back, taking Maria and never letting her go to school ever again.   
  
It was pretty much the same situation with Tony. They had both wondered why you were leaving them and wondered if they had done something wrong, unable to find an answer. Their feelings had been bruised for reasons they didn't understand and, when they saw you again, their first instinct was to retaliate by pretending they didn't care about you and had never been upset. Sometimes it frightened you how similar Maria and Tony actually were.  
  
“It's good to have you here,” said Pepper as she patted you on the arm. “Don't worry, he's not been the same since Afghanistan.”  
  
“No, no,” you said, wiping away a stray tear. “I deserved it. I would have reacted the same way in his position.”  
  
“That may be so, but there was no need for him to take it out on you like that,” she said, reminding you of all the reasons why you had treasured her friendship before. She didn't bother to pretend that you were blameless or that she knew the whole story, offering her support based only on what she knew for certain. That only made you sob harder.  
  
“No, no I deserved it,” you wept. “I left him. He loved me, I knew that and still I left. I didn't even look back. I should have been braver, taken karate lessons or something.”  
  
“[First Name], what are you talking about?”  
  
You told her everything from the beginning, leaving nothing out. Pepper's jaw dropped when you got to the part where you found out you were pregnant, lowering further and further when you told her about Obadiah and the cheque.   
  
“I should have gone straight to Tony,” you said. “I should have told him there and then, but I was so scared. I didn't know what to do.”  
  
Pepper wrapped her arm around your shoulders and stroked your hair.  
  
“Oh, sweetie, never mind Tony, you should have come straight to me,” she said. “I can't imagine what you've been through. Tony won't blame you for going through with it. We all know what Obadiah is capable of...”  
  
You realised she misunderstood and you laughed out loud.  
  
“Oh no, no, no,” you said. “I kept the baby.”  
  
You pulled your phone out of your purse and scrolled through the pictures until you found your personal favourite — the one of Maria in her Iron Man pyjamas, posing as if ready to take flight. It was your favourite because it was zoomed out enough to show how accurately Maria was posing, but zoomed in enough to capture the dark hair and eyes she had inherited. She looked just like a mini-Tony in that picture and Pepper didn't miss it.  
  
“Ohhhhhhh,” she cooed, “she's gorgeous! What's her name?”  
  
“Maria,” you said and it was Pepper's turn to start sobbing, except with tears of happiness. As Tony's personal assistant she understood the significance of the name better than anyone [5]. She scrolled through your other pictures, going all the way back to the first picture you had taken on that phone, when Maria was just learning to walk.  
  
“We'll sort this,” she promised as she passed you your phone back. “Whatever it takes.”  
  
The party went on for hours and you and Pepper spent a lot of time attempting to get Tony by himself so that you could talk to him, though he wasn't interested. Every time he heard your name he would drag a pretty young thing onto the dance floor and dry hump her to the music. He was drunk out of his mind by 10pm, out of it by midnight and after that he decided it would be fun to put on his Iron Man suit. You went outside for a while to get a breath of fresh air.  
  
You knew it was pointless to try and get through to him in that state —he was so eager to point out to you that he didn't care and that you hadn't hurt him that he wouldn't let his guard down enough to listen. You couldn't just leave either since Happy was supposed to be giving you a ride home. It only occurred to you later on that deep down you didn't really want to leave.  
  
The night was delightfully cool and much quieter than the party, though the booming sounds of the speakers and cries of laughter from Tony's guests were still audible. It was strange to think that a few years earlier you would have been at a party just like that one, wearing a new dress and laughing at a joke you barely even found funny, all while Tony gripped your waist and whispered in your ear all of the things he was going to do to you later on.   
  
You were so caught up in your own thoughts that you barely registered the way the screams of the party goers changed from ones of joy to ones of fear. You didn't notice anything had changed at all until a horde of strangers ran screaming out of the house and past you, yelling that 'Stark had gone mad', that he had a 'crazy look in his eyes'. That didn't sound good and, considering that the last time you had seen him Tony had been wearing a suit equipped with up to date weaponry that even the army was jealous of, the logical thing to do was go with the crowd and evacuate.  
  
You fought against the crowd like a salmon upstream and made your way back towards the house, readying yourself for whatever chaos you might find there. The music had stopped and the closer you got to the house the quieter things got. That wasn't a good sign.   
  
 _What the hell have you done, Tony?_  You thought, pushing past the other party guests and not caring how they flinched and cursed at you in response. Someone called you a crazy lady and you felt like agreeing with them. Tony didn't want you anywhere near him, yet the second things went bad you still ran to his side. Even as the earth shook under your feet and an explosion roared in the distance you didn't slow down.  
  
Tony's glass doors were completely destroyed and shards littered the floor for several metres around you. The room inside, that had previously been the scene of the party, had been turned upside down [6]. There were gaping holes in the walls and floor and what was left of the room was covered in broken furniture, abandoned coats, champagne flutes and pieces of electronic equipment left in the centre. You had only ever seen such scenes of destruction on the television and in photographs sent back to Stark Enterprises. Since you were only an accountant it wasn't exactly in your job description to go out and test the destructive capacity of Stark weaponry, so it was all new to you. Tony sat in the epicentre of the destruction. He wasn't wearing his Iron Man suit any more, which you counted as something of a blessing, as you weren't sure how you would have proceeded if he had been. He sat staring at his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time, oblivious to the way you gripped hold of the door frame and gingerly stepped inside.  
  
You knew at once that the place wasn't safe. It was securely built, but even the best houses weren't quite as safe with enormous holes in the walls and floor and you didn't want to think about what kind of state the electric system was in. You approached Tony slowly, your heels shattering the smaller pieces of broken glass and reached out a hand. You knew you were probably the last person he wanted to see but there was nobody else around and you couldn't just leave him there.  
  
“Tony,” you said. “Come on, let's get out of here.”  
  
He glanced up at you and across at your hand half-heartedly, as if they weren't really there in front of him.   
  
“Why are you here?” he asked again, without the coldness in his voice, only pain. If his words had been actions they would have been ones of submission, of rolling onto his back and showing you his stomach. “I woke up yesterday and it was the first time I didn't wonder why you weren't there. I didn't make an extra cup of coffee for you or ask Pepper to hunt down that stupid granola you like so much.”  
  
“Tony, I-”  
  
“I'm such an idiot,” he said, laughing out loud. “When I got back from Afghanistan I actually thought you would be there, waiting for me with everyone else. I looked for you in the press conference and every other meeting after that. I needed you then, but you weren't there.”  
  
He tugged at his shirt, revealing the glowing blue core you knew so well from all of the Iron Man merchandise Maria pointed out to you on a regular basis. You hadn't known until then that it was embedded so tightly in his chest and you winced at the sight of the black veins surrounding it.  
  
“Why did you have to come back now, now that I've finally accepted it all? This thing is  _killing_  me, [First Name] and at 8am yesterday morning I was okay with that!”  
  
There were tears in his eyes and you took a step closer, sinking to the floor next to him.  
  
“Why did you have to come back and remind me why I wasn't okay with it to begin with?” he said. “Now I'm going to have to fight it and what then? You'll just leave again, like you did before.”  
  
You wrapped an arm around his shoulders and guided his head onto your chest. He shut his eyes at the sound of your heartbeat in his ears and wrapped his arms around your body. You ruffled your fingers through his hair and kissed him on the forehead.  
  
Tony had never been perfect, but you didn't ever remember him being so damaged. You didn't say out loud that it had taken every ounce of willpower you had not to rush to his side when you learned he had returned from the desert.   
  
“I'm not going to leave,” you said. “Not unless you want me to.”  
  
A beam groaned above your head, reiterating the seriousness of the situation.  
  
“Listen, Tony, this place isn't safe,” you said. “We need to get out of here.”  
  
He didn't seem to register the words and you started to rise to your feet. Tony still had hold of your waist and when you moved, he moved too, making some sort of sound in protest. You took hold of his arm and slung it over your shoulder, propping him up so that he was at the very least at your level and easier to travel with. He had shoes on, so you didn't have to worry about him cutting his feet to shreds once you got him over the threshold, though that didn't mean you were completely without problems.  
  
For one you were alone with Tony and knew you couldn't leave him. He was blind drunk and had just caused god only knows how many thousands of dollars worth of damage, all while surrounded by guests armed with camera phones. Ordinarily you would have suggested going home but this was Tony's home and you doubted you would have security clearance at the Stark building any more. Not to mention it would look incredibly suspicious if you showed up with Tony in his current state. You knew the reputation of Stark Enterprises came before anything else and it was only a matter of time before it became national knowledge that something had happened at the party. You were the last person left, which made it your responsibility to get Tony out of there before he jeopardised things further.  
  
Tony's garage was relatively unchanged and he was only too happy to get in the car when you told him you were taking him for a ride somewhere. He asked you if you were taking him to the aerodrome, one of the many places he liked to take you when you were together. He would park the car in the trees and watch the planes landing until he got bored and amused himself by unbuttoning his shirt and pinning you up against the passenger side door, having his wicked way with you on leather seats. The only thing that frightened you more than how similar Maria and Tony were was the number of places where she could have been conceived.  
  
Tony was so utterly intoxicated that his prior mood swing seemed all but forgotten and you doubted he even remembered telling you he was dying, despite the fact that it was only about ten or so minutes ago. You picked up the keys for his Mercedes, which ironically enough was the most demure car in there and placed them in the ignition. That one sip of champagne was all you had had all night and you knew that that was about the equivalent alcohol consumption of half a chocolate liqueur. In a strange way you were glad Tony had been so callous to you at the party — if he had been any other way then you would almost certainly have been too drunk to take him anywhere.  
  
You took Tony back to your hotel room since you reasoned it was backwater enough for you to assume you wouldn't bump into any paparazzi and could therefore look after Tony in peace. Tony was sick about four times over the course of the journey, but having a carsick baby had taught you well. You knew exactly which signs to look out for and when to pull over, meaning that the car escaped unscathed. Each time he was sick you knelt next to him and smoothed your hands over his back, murmuring the same sort of words you would say to Maria whenever she was sick and it seemed to work, for he remained calm.  
  
Tony fell asleep within seconds of his head hitting the pillow, leaving you free to change into your nightclothes. It felt like an age since you had last worn sensible anything and almost everything hurt. Your body breathed a sigh of relief as you took off your bra and pulled on the greying vest top and shorts you wore for bed and rifled through the bathroom cupboard for extra bedlinen. Tony had done his usual and spread his entire body diagonally across the width of the bed, meaning that for you to share the bed you would have to cuddle up close. Before your pregnancy you would have though little of it but you liked to think you'd matured since then, so instead you wrapped him in a warm blanket so he wouldn't catch a chill and made yourself a makeshift bed on the couch. That's not to say you weren't tempted. You glimpsed his lips as you wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, lips that you had very fond memories of kissing.   
  
You barely slept a wink that night. Every time you closed your eyes all you could think about was the glowing core in Tony's chest that he said was killing him. You didn't know what he meant by that or if he would even have told you if it weren't for how much he had had to drink. Whenever you opened your eyes you saw the faint blue light shining on the ceiling, moving with the gentle rise and fall of Tony's chest. It was oddly mesmerising, yet you found you couldn't help but hate it for hurting the one you cared about so terribly. Tony had never been such a wreck before and you knew that Pepper was probably only half right when she said Afghanistan was the thing that changed him. Somehow you knew that he probably hadn't told her or Happy or anybody else at the party that he had come to terms with being killed by the thing in his chest.  
  
You had a lot to talk about in the morning.  
  
You must have fallen asleep at some stage, for you opened your eyes to find sunlight streaming through the curtains and lighting up the room. You stretched and glanced across at Tony, smiling when you saw that he was still snoring. You wondered how long it had been since he had last had a proper night's sleep.  
  
There was a small coffee shop just around the corner from the hotel and, after adjusting Tony's sheets and deciding that he wasn't about to wake up any time soon, you pulled on a pair of jeans and made a quick pit stop. You ordered a cappuccino for yourself and a big bottle of water for Tony along with a batch of breakfast muffins. You hadn't eaten anything for hours and you were absolutely ravenous, fully capable of eating the entire batch to yourself were it not for the fact that you had someone to look after. The baristas had put the TV on and arranged several of the morning's newspapers around the counter, which you examined while you waited for your order. You weren't surprised in the slightest to discover that videophone footage of the fight at Tony's party was all over the morning news and the front page of every newspaper was asking the same question — was the Iron Man technology really a threat to US security? Some of the articles made reference to the fact that Tony had disappeared and you breathed a sigh of relief that none of them seemed to have any clue where he had gone. You could relax for the moment.  
  
The smell of the breakfast muffins woke Tony up and he rubbed his eyes before sitting up in bed, taking in his surroundings with a confused expression. He didn't remember you taking him there, just like you thought, but when he saw you sitting on the other side of the room sipping coffee he seemed to calm down.  
  
“[First Name]...” he said. “Where are we?”  
  
“We're safe for now,” you said. “And the press have no idea where you are, which is probably for the best.”  
  
You had 'borrowed' one of the coffee shop newspapers and you draped it across Tony's lap, revealing one of the many angry 'IRON MAN THREAT TO USA?' headlines. Tony winced at the sight of it and you passed him the bottle of water.  
  
“I don't know what the hell has been going on with you and the company since I left, but we're going to fix this,” you said, unscrewing the bottle lid. “First you are going to drink this-” he glanced at you as if to say 'but why?' - “all of it! Then I'll consider letting you have a breakfast muffin. Do you have any idea how many times you threw up on the way here?!”  
  
Tony took a sip of the water to appease you and slowly climbed out of bed. His legs wobbled under him to begin with and you immediately ducked under him as a support. He wrapped his arm around you and steadied himself, taking a swig of water but not letting go of you, even when he was perfectly fine on his feet.  
  
“I said some bad things to you, didn't I?” he said.  
  
“It doesn't matter,” you said. “I deserved it.”  
  
“No,” he said. “You came back to me.”  
  
“You said this was killing you,” you said, stroking a fingertip along the cold edge of his glowing core. “What did you mean?”  
  
Tony ruffled his fingers through his hair and made an irritated noise, turning to take a sip of water. You placed a hand on his shoulder. He could barely look at you and you wondered what was coming.  
  
He told you about what had happened in Afghanistan, about how Obadiah had sent him there expecting him to die and how the Iron Man suit had come about as a result. He told you about the device keeping shrapnel from his heart and how it was poisoning him, killing him slowly. The more he told you, the more you found yourself shrinking into him, holding him and utterly hating yourself for leaving him in such dire straits. You didn't know if it was because you had become a mother and you felt a similar kind of responsibility for him that you did for Maria, but you wished beyond anything else that you had just been able to stand up to Obadiah all of that time ago. You didn't even notice your eyes blur with tears until Tony laughed at you and said things would be fine.  
  
“No,” you said. “No, you don't understand. This is my fault, all of it!”  
  
Tony raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Unless you planned it all out for Obadiah I don't see how it could be.”  
  
You knew this was it, the moment you told him everything and you walked over to the other side of the room, wringing your hands together. You needed coffee all of a sudden.  
  
“[First Name],” said Tony as you picked up your cappuccino. “Why is this your fault?”  
  
He wasn't messing around any more, he was serious.  
  
“I didn't have anything to do with Obadiah's plans in Afghanistan, but I  _knew_  he was bad,” you said, just louder than a whisper. “I  _knew_  it all along, because...he's the reason I left.”  
  
Tony's expression barely even flickered. It was as if you had said something that didn't shock him in the slightest, but instead confirmed one of his worst suspicions.  
  
“I knew he was bad and I left you alone with him,” you said. “I didn't even warn you. You explain to me now how this isn't my fault?! I could have spared you all of this.”  
  
Tony sighed and stood up to face you.  
  
“[First Name], the only thing you could have spared me was years of worry by picking up your phone and calling me,” he said.   
  
“Things were complicated,” you said. “I was young, stupid and frightened and they never make a good combination!”  
  
“What was so bad that you couldn't tell me about it, [First Name]? We were a team, or at least I thought we were...”  
  
It was your turn to look away.  
  
“Do you remember the day you first asked me out on a date?” you said, just above a whisper. “You showed up in that Armani suit and told me the date plans without even consulting me. It was the first time you'd even talked to me and you weren't my type, but you were so confident and charismatic that I’d drowned before I realised I was in the water.”  
  
You smirked at the memory.  
  
“Of course I remember,” said Tony, screwing the lid back onto his bottle of water. “But what does this have to do with-”  
  
“It's the same,” you said. “All the same! I never wanted to be a Mom either but the second Obadiah threatened me I realised that there was nothing I wouldn't do to keep my baby safe. I never planned to be a Mom but it came so naturally that I became one without realising it.”  
  
Tony froze at the mention of a baby and you heard him place the water bottle on the bedside cabinet. You squeezed your eyes shut, unable to look at him, unable to do anything.  
  
“You...had a baby?” he said, in a gentle voice. “Our baby?”  
  
You could sense the weight in those words and you turned to him, tears streaking down your face. He was standing just a little way away from you, ready for fight or flight, his eyes bright with hope.   
  
“Our baby,” you confirmed, your eyes blurring with more tears as Tony all but pounced on you, pulling you into his arms and holding you tight. “Well...she's going to be five soon, so she's not going to be a baby for much longer.”  
  
“I have a daughter?” Tony said as though he could hardly believe it and you nodded, laughing as he tried to hold you even tighter and then seemed to rethink it, loosening off as if you were something quite delicate.  
  
It all came out then, the full story of what had happened between you and Obadiah and how scared you had been. Tony listened to all of it, combing his fingers through your hair when you told him how much you had wanted to call him but how you wanted to protect Maria.  
  
You couldn't believe he knew and the weight was finally off your shoulders. He couldn't seem to stop stepping back and looking at you, trailing his eyes over your stomach as if he couldn't believe there had been a baby in there once and feeling just to be sure. The lingering stretch marks were clue enough.   
  
He leaned over to kiss you and you reached up to block him.  
  
“I don't think so, morning breath,” you said, sticking out your tongue and laughing out loud as he playfully wrestled you to the bed and attempted to shower your face in kisses. Extra emphasis on  _try_  as every time he came anything like close you wriggled out of reach. For a second things were just as they had been before Maria and the shrapnel in Tony's chest. Your heart beat quickly and you were soon out of breath from climbing over Tony and dodging his over the top sloppy kisses. You collapsed side by side on the bed, panting and staring at the ceiling. Tony propped himself up on one elbow and smiled down at you; not the artificial smile he reserved for paparazzi and news conferences, but the real, caring one that only his nearest and dearest got to see. He stroked his fingers through your hair, around your face and over your lips and kissed you before you knew what was happening. Your body relaxed into the familiarity of it and he climbed up onto all fours so that he was above you, deepening the kiss.  
  
Things would never be the same between you, you thought as clothes hit the floor and flesh hit flesh. You had walked in different directions for too long, but you were content as you wrapped your legs around his body and cried out in pleasure as he tightened his grip on your hips and thrusted harder. You dug your nails into his back and took in the feel of every contour in his back, catching his lips on yours every time they came close enough.   
  
The important things had remained the same. You were the mother of his child but that didn't mean you no longer had Tony's back and his heart might have been encased in solid iron but it still belonged to you.  
  
  
~~~~~ **EPILOGUE** ~~~~~~~  
  
You usually dreaded presentations day at Maria's school because of the eyes of everyone on the back of your neck, laughing at you while your back was turned. Maria was so short but at the same time so ambitious that everyone was torn between finding her ridiculous and absolutely adorable.   
  
You had returned to your ordinary life with Maria despite Tony's protests as you didn't want to uproot her in the middle of her school year. That was all set to change, though. Tony wanted nothing more than to have the two of you living in New York with him and whatever Tony wanted Tony got.  
  
The theme of Maria's class's presentation was 'MY PARENTS' and Maria had gotten told off over and over by Ms Schwartzmann for writing about Iron Man. The first real argument they ever had took place in the middle of the classroom over telling lies about Iron Man being her Daddy, which of course was the rock solid truth. Ms Schwartzmann called you in after school, telling you how much she worried about Maria and asking if you had arranged visits with her father yet.  
  
“I have,” you said, a wicked plan forming in your head. “In fact, Maria's going to talk about him on presentations day.”  
  
So it was that Tony sat down with the other Dads and you gave him the thumbs up from the audience. Nobody thought much of his resemblance to the infamous Tony Stark, discounting it as a coincidence until Maria stood up on the podium at the front with Tony to one side of her.  
  
“My name is Maria [Last Name],” she said. “And my Daddy is Iron Man.”  
  
Tony took his cue and activated his armour, prompting whispers and gasps from the audience.  
  
“I'm Tony Stark,” he said, just before his helmet slotted into place, “and all the other Dads can go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Happy is Tony's bodyguard and a retired boxer. In the movies he's played by John Favreau AKA the director and acts as comic relief between Tony and Pepper.  
> [2] The Stark Expo is a festival dedicated to new technology. They have one in the Captain America movie too.  
> [3] Yeah, I know that song wasn't released when Iron Man 2 came out, but...I like it...so...  
> [4] Natalie is actually Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow, for those of you who haven't seen IM2  
> [5] Maria is named after Maria Stark, Tony's mother.  
> [6] Once again, the chaos that happened here won't make much sense if you haven't seen the second Iron Man movie (or you feel you need a refresher), so here's a link to what went down while Reader was outside http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChKOtKDfx2Q.


	14. Old Habits [Coulson]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is wondering, I imagine Reader and Coulson's kids are called Stephen, Logan and Peggy.

You met Phil Coulson when you were six and, since the day you first met, had been having the same debate. It was an argument that followed you on your first date, lingered on your lips longer than your first kiss and was whispered in your ear the day you got married. The photograph of you and Phil sharing your first dance as man and wife was always something of a joke among your family, for Phil had a wide smile across his face but you looked as if you had just been gravely insulted. Nobody needed to ask why this was, since anyone who knew you could take an educated guess. 

Even as you deliberated over names for your first child, followed shortly by the second and third, the old argument came up and followed you all the way down the front pews of the church to each christening. Your children learned of the old argument early on, faster than they learned how to read, write or walk. If they picked a side they knew better than to say so and whenever the argument came up over dinner they learned to roll their eyes and say nothing.

The years rolled by and your children grew into teenagers. The argument grew too. It was no longer the simple disagreement from when you were children in the playground but a myriad of complexities so closely intertwined with one another that it was difficult to pick a single thread apart from the rest. The argument could last for hours at a time and very often did, bringing with it a new sort of mischief, such as your husband throwing a new idea for his side of the debate at you as he kissed you goodbye and left for work and you slipping a note into his lunch box detailing an idea you had had. You were the only couple anybody knew to take such pleasure in arguing and you joked that was the real reason your marriage had lasted so long. Asking for a divorce would be the same as conceding defeat.

Whenever your husband returned home after a late shift and you asked him about his day the argument would resurface, lasting even as you took his dinner from the oven. When you told him about how the children had done on their school reports his usual response was to smile and remind you of one of the many instances where one of your reports contained a disapproving comment from the teacher because the argument had leaked into your studies.

Your kids learned to leave the room whenever the argument appeared, sometimes feeling brave enough to make the comment that the two of you couldn't possibly have any intention of resolving the issue, since you would still be arguing about it when the two of you had false teeth and hearing aids. You and Phil would reach out for each other's hand and laugh at that idea, claiming that you could only hope so.

Things were better than you could hope for if the only thing you had to worry about when you got older was arguing with your husband over whether Wolverine or Captain America would win in a fight.

 

 


	15. Tomorrow the Spell will be Broken [Loki]

Your dress for the Yule Ball was a shade of pale green, embroidered with golden thread. It shimmered and swayed with every step you took, catching the attention of everyone you passed.   
  
“Who  _is_  that girl?” People whispered as you passed, the candlelight from the Great Hall twinkling against your gown.   
  
“I've never seen her before,” said others.  
  
Almost every girl you passed pouted and dragged their date onto the dance floor, where Professor McGonagall had set about slow dancing with Professor Flitwick, while most of the boys you passed offered you goblets of pumpkin juice. You silently declined each one with a shake of your head, scanning the remainder of the Hall for dark dress robes, decorated with a silver pin in the shape of a snake. You were starting to think your plan had backfired; there were so many boys there, all in dark dress robes and looking much the same as one another.  
  
You were so excited when you got your acceptance letter to Hogwarts. You were Muggle born and up until that point the idea of magic being real had always seemed slightly ridiculous to you. Of course, like most Muggle born witches, you had always been a bit 'different' to other children your age and in the eleven years of your life there had been several incidents nobody had been able to explain. A boy tugged your hair in the playground once only to find his own catch fire and at your sixth birthday party you took a bite out of your birthday cake while your mother's back was turned only to discover that, no matter how many bites you took, there was never any missing.  
  
You studied most of your textbooks before you left for Hogwarts and soon learned the basics of the history of magic: what it meant to be Muggle born and how that stigma had evolved and changed over the centuries. You spent the journey to London examining the ancient family trees and memorising the names, promising yourself that you would never let the magical families get the better of you. You would show them all that a Muggle born could be just as academically gifted as someone from one of the old families.   
  
It came as no surprise when the Sorting Hat put you in Slytherin and, contrary to what everybody had been saying on the Hogwarts Express, you felt that it suited you the best. Your fascination with learning new things, a quality most commonly found in Ravenclaws and a trait that the Hat mused over for quite some time, was completely overruled by your need to prove yourself and ambitions of becoming the first female Minister of Magic since 1607. You put on your Slytherin robes with pride, knowing that it was the first step towards your dream.  
  
You were sorted just before the two sons of the current Minister of Magic, whose arrival on the Hogwarts Express you watched with a great amount of fascination. You had read all sorts of things about the man known informally as the 'All-Father', who proved his bravery in the war against the Dark Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters to the point where he was the equivalent of a living legend and the most popular - if not the  _only_  - candidate for Minister after the war. You stole a glance out of the carriage window at the man you had read so much about and found you weren't disappointed. The 'All-Father' was tall and stocky, with a long white beard trimmed in the fashion of wizards everywhere and waved his sons off with an enormous hand and a booming laugh that still echoed in your ears many hours later.  
  
As was to be expected, his sons had the pick of the train carriages; everyone wanted to say they had traveled to Hogwarts with them on what was arguably one of the most important days of their lives. Their carriage of choice was the next one down from yours and you made the excuse of buying a snack from the trolley so that you could steal a glimpse of them. You weren't the only one to have the idea and the corridor outside was packed with other kids of varying ages, some in their Hogwarts robes, some still in their ordinary clothes, all peering through the window of that carriage and coming to their own conclusions.  
  
The oldest of the two was called Thor and you knew who he was without having to be told. His hair was a bright gold, just like you imagined the All-Father's had been once, and he was just as stocky as the man to wave them off. Thor's laughs were like the roars of a lion and everyone around you claimed that this was proof that he would carry on the Odinson family tradition of being sorted into Gryffindor. The Odinson family was one of the best known wizarding families and you had read over their history many times before bed. You had been unable to find any hint of taint or bad blood anywhere in the Odinson history. They had never condemned Muggle borns like so many other families at the time and had noble ties stretching back all the way to Godric Gryffindor himself. True Odinsons were always Gryffindors for Godric Gryffindor would always look upon an Odinson as a friend.  
  
Loki was different to his brother in every way that a person can possibly be different to someone else. He was much thinner, with jet black hair and pale green eyes that seemed to see everything. Loki said very little while his brother happily chatted to the other people in the carriage about Quidditch and how many cards he needed to complete his collection of Chocolate Frog trading cards, but you knew that he didn't miss anything. He looked as out of place in that train carriage as you felt.  
  
Loki didn't say anything when the Sorting Hat placed him in Slytherin, not even when the entire Great Hall buzzed with mutters and Thor demanded that he be sorted again. He took his place next to you silently, as if resigning himself to a fate he had all ready known all about and prepared himself for. No Odinson had ever been sorted into any other house but Gryffindor, everyone knew that, but Loki did not protest.  
  
Everyone was ready to pass it off as a mistake, ready to laugh it off and back up Thor's demand of another sorting, but the second the Hat touched Thor's golden hair it screamed Gryffindor. Nobody knew what to think, some still claiming that it had to be some mistake, while others nudged Loki and said that at least he hadn't been sorted into Hufflepuff. Even then Loki didn't say anything at all.  
  
He didn't say anything when you first years followed the Prefects into the dungeons, only watched with a solemn expression across his face as the glow from the Gryffindor table and his brother were replaced by shadowy cold. He never raised his hand once in the entire first week of classes and, when called upon by the teachers, spoke in a low tone just beyond a whisper. He sometimes went over to the Gryffindor table to pass on messages to his brother or trade the sweets sent in from their mother. You learned quickly that Loki was very, very fond of Fizzing Whizzbees and Sugar Quills, while Thor much preferred Chocolate Frogs and Every Flavour Beans. You couldn't help but notice that whenever Loki went over to the Gryffindor table to trade he hesitated, as though waiting for an invitation to linger.   
  
It seemed to you that Loki only smiled when his brother was around, only cracked jokes in his company. Your desire was still to be the female Minister of Magic but until then there was one thing you wanted to accomplish. You wanted to be the reason Loki smiled at breakfast, the person he waved to when he returned to the Common Room. You wanted to be his accomplice, his friend, the person he held hands with on the class trip to Hogsmeade. There was so much you wanted to say to him but didn't know how.  
  
You noticed before anybody else the dark cloud lingering over the Odinson brothers when they boarded the Hogwarts Express at the beginning of the fourth year. For the first time since their arrival Thor and Loki sat apart for the journey, prompting whispers in every carriage. Everyone wanted to know what had happened between them, why they could not be persuaded to laugh with one another as they had done so readily before. Deep down you knew that it was all just a manifestation of something that had always been there, like a butterfly breaking out of the chrysalis that kept it prisoner, but still it made you sad.  
  
Thor had never been one for secrets and everyone knew the truth of it before the train reached the outskirts of Hogwarts. During the summer a number of Death Eaters had escaped Azkaban and broken into the All-Father's mansion. Everyone around you had gasped at the very idea, as if that and that alone could cause such a rift between the brothers, who had still kept one another's company after being sorted into rival houses. You knew better than that and were soon proved correct. The Death Eaters that had broken into the mansion had not done so to take revenge on the Odinson family as so many thought at the time, but to reclaim what was theirs. After the Dark Lord was defeated in battle and his followers shut up in Azkaban the All-Father had taken the newborn son of the Laufeyson family and raised him as his own. He hoped to raise him fair and good and in that he did not fail; the whole world believed Loki to be his true-born son.  
  
It was a symbolic act, meant to reinstate peace and forgiveness, one that nobody missed. The Laufeyson family were just as well known to the wizarding world as the Odinsons but for completely different reasons. The Odinsons were known for their allegiances to Godric Gryffindor and praised for their honour, while the Laufeysons were old allies of Salazar Slytherin and their family tree read like a who's who of criminals and misdeeds.   
  
For almost the entirety of September, people pointed and whispered whenever they saw Loki. People said that he had let his parents inside the All-Father's house and couldn't be trusted.  
  
“What if he's writing to his real Dad right now?” one of the first years muttered when they saw Loki drafting a letter home. “Everyone knows that the Laufeysons are no good. They're bound to have told him all sorts of bad spells.”  
  
You were too busy to listen to idle gossip. You had other things on your mind. The Yule Ball was coming up and you wanted to be prepared. For the first time in many centuries Hogwarts was hosting the Triwizard tournament and everyone in your year and above had packed pretty dresses and dress robes into their trunks ready for the occasion. You were too preoccupied with Loki to pay very much attention to how the trials were going. You heard that one of the Hufflepuffs was doing rather well, though other than that you couldn't give a fig either way. Your friends disapproved of how little you seemed to care, though they often joked about your obsession with Loki and knew that if he had been one of the champions then things would have been quite different. You would have made damn sure you had the best view.  
  
You knew that Loki and Thor would have to attend the Yule Ball whether they wanted to or not. It was an unfortunate outcome of being well bred (well, in Thor's case anyway, but the Odinsons seemed happy to forget about Loki's true parentage). You also knew that Thor had asked several girls to the ball on his brother's behalf but all of them had declined on the grounds that they either all ready had dates or were going home for Christmas. They would not have been so quick to decline if Thor had been asking if they would like to be  _his_  date, though you kept your mouth shut about that.  
  
Over the summer you visited Venice with your family and treated yourself to one of the elaborate masks they sold on each and every market corner. Yours was gold and decorated with sequins, which made you think of Loki and the way he looked when he had a brilliant idea. Shortly afterwards, when you received your Hogwarts letters and wrote off to your friends to ask if they knew anything about why your equipment list included dress robes for boys and ball gowns for girls their replies left you stunned. Hogwarts was having some sort of ball, though the reason was not announced until after the Sorting.   
  
You had never approached Loki in all of the time you had been obsessed with him, let alone started up a conversation with him or admitted how you felt. You were just a Muggle born and you knew it would only end in rejection. If you never admitted your feelings to him then they could never end up hurt, even if that meant it felt like a weight across your back and shoulders every time you saw him. The Ball offered up an opportunity and you quickly formed a plan in your head. A chance for Loki to smile at you and acknowledge you without risking rejection on your part.   
  
To begin with you only meant to put on a nice dress with your new Venetian mask and ask him for a dance, guided along by the courage of knowing he wouldn't recognise you and, therefore, couldn't reject you. As the term began and you learned of Loki's new crisis, however, you knew that plan had to change. It wasn't enough for you just to put on a pretty dress and your Venetian mask — you had to be perfect, beautiful even; you had to show all those other girls who had pretended to have dates what he was worth.   
  
Beautiful was so much easier in theory, though, than in practice. The night of the Ball you were so nervous that you could have cried. You were terrified your hair would be flyaway and resist its bindings or that you had eaten too much in the last few weeks, meaning your dress wouldn't fit. You knew next to nothing about make up and worried that you would look like some sort of macabre painting.  
  
You told the other girls in your dorm that you weren't going, so they left to get ready without you, leaving you tucked up in bed, pretending to have a stomach-ache. When you were sure they had gone you all but jumped to your feet and rushed to get ready yourself.   
  
For the first time in your life your hair did as it was told and the dress looked better than you could have dreamed. You slipped on your shoes and then your mask, taking a quick look at yourself in the full length mirror nearby. You barely recognised yourself standing there and you knew nobody else would.  
  
And so it was that you entered the Great Hall with mere minutes to go before midnight, examining the faces of everyone there. Everyone wanted to know who you were, everyone whispered and stared when they saw you, but you weren't interested in them and made that clear by dismissing them the second they approached you.  
  
Loki was sitting in the corner, watching his brother dance with a crowd of girls and looking utterly miserable. You had to pass Thor to get to Loki and, much like everyone else, Thor was quite taken by the mysterious girl in the mask.  
  
“My lady!” he called, extending a beefy arm in your direction and motioning for you to come over. “Do join me for a dance!”  
  
You glanced across at Loki, sitting on the floor and watching as if he was quite bored. Your stomach fluttered when he saw you and, when he realised you had seen him look, he immediately averted his gaze. He expected you to ignore him and join Thor, you realised. He thought you would pass over him like all the other girls dancing with his brother.  
  
You turned to Thor and shook your head, stepping over to Loki instead and reaching out a hand. The music still played but nobody was dancing any more. Everyone was far too interested in the mysterious scene playing before them.   
  
 _Who is that girl?_  You could practically hear them all saying.  _Why does she want to dance with_ him?  
  
Loki was hesitant and analysed you for some time before standing up and taking your hand. You led him onto the dance floor, ignoring the way everyone stared at you. You didn't have a clue how to dance but Loki did and he took the lead. It was just like something out of a fairy tale; you had danced for three songs before you realised that the other party goers were applauding you.  
  
“I'm afraid I don't know your name,” said Loki as you briefly retired for a drink. You glanced up from your pumpkin juice to see that he was smiling at you,  _really_  smiling just like you had always wanted. You took another sip of juice to hide the colour that was rising in your cheeks.  
  
“It doesn't matter,” you said. “Tomorrow the spell will be broken, so tonight let's pretend it's all a wonderful dream.”  
  
And a wonderful dream it truly was. For the first time in his life Loki was the centre of attention and the man everyone wanted to be, rather than watching as his brother received that honour. Everyone loved Loki that night, all of the girls wanted to dance with him as if some kind of invisible curtain had been lifted and they saw him for who he really was for the very first time. He refused them all, though, preferring the company of that one masked girl whose name he never found out but never ventured from his side.  
  
For that one night it didn't matter that you were a Muggle born and Loki's biological parents were Death Eaters. You danced as equals until early morning, a sight so bewitching that it would have looked out of place anywhere else but in a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.


	16. Close Your Eyes [Steve]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for death and general angst.
> 
> Originally written as a Thor centric, but changed to Steve for reasons that will make sense within the fic.

Your son was born with soft blonde hair and eyes the colour of the ocean. He was born before you had even had chance to pick out a name for him and you had to settle for referring to him as the 'little guy' in your small conversations with him. He was warm in your arms and so peaceful that it was as if he didn't have a care in the world.  
  
Steve had been so happy when you told him he was going to be a father; happy and terrified. It was what he'd always wanted, but when the time arrived he couldn't hide the fact that he was filled with a mixture of pride and fear. His immediate reaction was to lift you into his arms and into the air. He lowered you just as quickly, apologising and asking if you felt all right. You had kissed him then, laughing at how he thought you would break so easily.  
  
“I'm not made of glass,” you remembered saying as you wrapped your arms around him.  
  
That day you thought everything was falling into place, the dust finally settling around your relationship. It hadn't exactly been smooth sailing but you were sure a baby would put things right, a feeling that returned to you the first time the baby kicked and Steve traced his hand across your stomach with a proud expression across his face.  
  
You had only just started buying baby clothes. Steve didn't want to know the sex of the baby until it was born, but you had always been somewhat convinced it was a boy. You didn't know if it was your hormones in overdrive or your secret hopes but you found your gaze lingering over blue blankets and babygrows far more than their pink counterparts. In the end you compromised, choosing delicate shades of yellow or white that would look equally adorable on a boy or a girl.  
  
Pregnancy seemed to suit you well and, once morning sickness passed you by, you practically glowed. Everyone stopped to tell you how well you looked and you would try and catch Steve's happy smiles out of the corner of your eye, wanting to see that brief flash of satisfaction.  
  
That morning you packed up your things ready to go on maternity leave, thanking your workmates for the bouquet of flowers they had bought for you and the pile of cards from everyone in the department. Everyone wanted to wish you good luck for the next few months, wanted to tell you what a fantastic mother you would be. You felt you believed them and forgot most of the worries you had harboured up until then: what if you couldn't stand the labour pains or you passed out trying to change your first diaper; what if  _Steve_  passed out changing his first diaper; what if you ended up completely mangled  _down there_  and could never (as your husband so delicately put it) 'get intimate' ever again? When Steve met you to take you home you had a big smile on your face and your worries were forgotten. You felt that you were completely prepared for every possible outcome.  
  
It all seemed horribly ironic as you sat with your son in your arms.   
  
There was one thing you hadn't counted in all of your equations and that was the serum. You had never known Steve as anything other than a human tank, taller than you and infamous among the women of SHIELD for his rippling muscles and old fashioned manners. It wasn't until you married him that you got a good look at his file and saw what he looked like before he was Captain America. His shy smile was the only thing you recognised and you often wondered what else about him had changed. Steve himself was notoriously silent on that topic.  
  
Everyone assumed that because of the serum running through Steve's body your baby would be born incredibly strong and until the day you gave birth you believed it yourself. You cracked jokes about the baby doing press ups and pushing you around in a stroller, a mental image that Steve found incredibly amusing.  
  
“From what I've heard about childbirth I'm the one who'll need the stroller,” he would say whenever you cracked such a joke and you were inclined to believe him. Your midwife recommended you watch birthing videos to prepare and you hadn't known a grown man could go so pale until that moment.   
  
It was all a mistake in the end; your son could not possibly inherit the serum through his DNA, for it had never altered that to begin with. Instead your boy was born with weak lungs and a hole in his heart, before full term. An ordinary, strong baby would make it but your baby wasn't strong; his lungs were not strong enough to breathe on their own, his heart too weak to beat to a proper rhythm. Putting him in an incubator and praying for the best was all you could do and even that didn't help, for even with the assistance your little boy's chest slowed with every passing minute.  
  
Steve had sat in silence ever since the baby was born, so much so that it was like having some sort of statue next to you. He didn't cry like you did when the doctors told you just how frail the baby was, didn't yell and scream and demand they did everything they could. He sat and watched as if everything was a bad dream and soon he would wake up, back in the forties, to a time when he'd never met you and would never have to hear you cry. He didn't move as you climbed to your feet and paced the room, ignoring the searing pain between your thighs and the protests of the nurses. His silence both infuriated and soothed you; half of you wanted to scream at him, demand to know how it was he could stay so utterly calm, while the other wanted to curl up on his lap and weep on his shoulder.  
  
Steve only left the room when you begged the Doctors to let you hold your little boy in his last few moments. You wanted him in your arms at the end and they agreed somewhat reluctantly. You had never seen hair so golden as your baby's, nor eyes so blue. He was so small, but at the same time so beautiful, like an artist's interpretation of a cherub. You took in the sounds of his laboured breaths, imagining what his laugh might sound like. It pained you more than you could say that you would never know.   
  
Minutes passed, almost half an hour, before your son fell silent and your eyes blurred with tears. One tear dropped from your eye onto the face of your sleeping baby, followed by another and then another in quick succession. You didn't know where things had gone wrong.  
  
You found Steve on the roof some time later, standing on the edge as if debating whether to jump. You had decided to write 'James Rogers' on your boy's birth certificate, for leaving him without a name left you feeling colder than ever. It was a misty evening and the skies were grey with drizzle, the water dampening your hair and face with each step you took. Steve didn't look at you at first, didn't look at the bloodstained nightgown you had yet to change out of or the hospital band around your wrist. Instead he stared at the traffic passing by below, not seeming to notice you were even there until you reached out a hand. He turned at your touch on his shoulder and you noticed that his face was wet with more tears than you had thought possible. When he saw you standing there he knew it was all over and the two of you stood there in silence for quite some time.  
  
“It's all my fault,” he eventually said in a low voice.   
  
“No,” you said. “It's nobody's fault.”  
  
“He was weak because of me,” said Steve, clenching his hands into fists. “Because I was weak. If I had had a stronger body before, better lungs, he would have survived. He would have made it and we wouldn't be standing here like this.”  
  
You didn't know what to say to that and stared at the grey clouds above your head, hot tears streaking down your face once again. You honestly thought until then that you had no tears left to cry.   
  
“Come inside,” you said, taking his hand in yours. “Please.”  
  
Steve looked at you and your entwined hands in confusion.  
  
“How can you stand to look at me after all that's happened today?” he asked. “If it wasn't for me-”  
  
“That may be so,” you said, “but I forgive you.”  
  
You remembered the way he looked at you then, before crumbling into sobs that seemed to shake his entire body and render him unable to stand. The full weight of what happened that day hadn't hit him until that moment and suddenly all he could do was bury his face in you and hide his tears from the world.  
  
As time went by you remembered it all as vividly as if it were only a matter of hours before, even two years later when the midwives handed you your newborn, a son with hair of the same beautiful gold as James' had been. He had been snatched from you so quickly and given up the fight before he was even a few hours old, but you knew you would never forget him. He would live on in your second boy, in the sound of his laughter and his determination to win every school race, despite having asthma.   
  
In that sense he had never left you at all. It was as if he was always in the corner of your eye, just out of sight.


	17. If You Want the World [Clint]

Lunch breaks at work were always interesting to say the least. Most of the field agents preferred to travel out into to one of the overpriced organic food places around the corner, but you enjoyed the atmosphere of the SHIELD cafeteria. It was quiet enough for you to turn to the latest chapter of whatever book you were reading and the greasy fries they served weren't so bad if you picked at them very carefully with your fork.  
  
You were a computer programmer and spent most of your waking hours adding numbers, names and locations to the SHIELD database. The information meant next to nothing to you, save perhaps the knowledge of what would happen if it was entered incorrectly. That was why you enjoyed your quiet time in the cafeteria so much. You spent so much time analysing names and proofreading documentation that you welcomed the chance to kick back and lose yourself in a good book.  
  
You weren't particular about the sort of book you enjoyed reading. One day you could be found smiling at a particularly romantic line in a Jane Austen novel and the next scrutinising a detective story. You had yet to find a favourite book and you were starting to think you would never find one, since your pile of 'completed' books got bigger and bigger with each passing week. You were somewhat happy about that, for you were convinced that the day you found your favourite book would be the day you no longer had something to occupy yourself with at lunchtime.  
  
That was, of course, until you met  _him_.  
  
The SHIELD cafeteria was hardly ever busy so whenever someone came in to buy food it broke both the silence and your concentration. Sometimes you would sneak a peek to see if you recognised them, though you hardly ever did. You were the shy, retiring type, so you didn't know very many people outside of your own department and the other computer programmers were either so engrossed in their work that they ate sandwiches at their desk or so fed up with it that they couldn't escape the building fast enough.  
  
You were engrossed in the exploits of Pierre in the early chapters of  _War and Peace_  when a stranger stumbled into the cafeteria and ordered a cheeseburger in such an obnoxiously loud manner that you had no choice but to divert your attentions away from Russian aristocracy[1]. The voice belonged to a man around your age with sandy hair and a cheeky smile, the same cheeky smile he flashed you as he turned to find a seat and noticed you looking at him.  
  
That was the first time you met Clint Barton, but not the last.  
  
Each time you opened your book to read about Andrew preparing for war or Pierre joining the Free Masons Clint would enter the room and buy his lunch — always a cheeseburger and fries — and grin at you as if you were old friends. You never said a word to one another but as time went by Clint positioned himself closer to you, moving from one table to another, edging closer and closer until he was on the next table along from you.  
  
The next day you smiled at him when he entered the cafeteria and replaced your bookmark.  
  
“Why don't you sit there?” you said, pointing to the chair across from you.  
  
You had nearly finished  _War and Peace_  by that point and you couldn't help but find it somewhat amusing that it had taken him so long to approach you at all.  
  
“Sure,” he said, placing his tray of food across from yours and glancing at the cover of your book.  
  
“Tolstoy, huh?” he said, dousing his fries with ketchup.   
  
“He's very long-winded,” you said. “I thought Dickens was bad.”  
  
Clint laughed out loud and seemed to look at you for the first time.  
  
“I'm Clint,” he said, “and I'm afraid I'll have to take your word on that.”  
  
“[First Name],” you said.   
  
It took you a couple of months to finish  _War and Peace_  and when you finally reached the last page you were half convinced that it was a firm contender for your favourite book. You had always been so worried about that happening before, about how you would occupy yourself, but you no longer had cause for concern.  
  
It had taken Clint a couple of months to get the courage to introduce himself. How long was it going to take him to ask you out on a date?


	18. Family Portrait [Tony]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is part 3 of the Tony mini arc. Part one is Half Measures and part two is It's Always Gonna Come Right Back To This. 
> 
> Original notes from Luna, as always ;)

_Tick_  
  
Like most children, your daughter thought you knew the answers to everything. She thought that if she asked you why the sky was blue and not some other, more interesting colour you would be able to tell her without stopping to think about it. You never admitted to her that there were so many things about the world that you didn't understand either and would go to the grave never knowing.   
  
 _Tock._  
  
Like how time could fly so quickly when you wanted to stop and smell the flowers but so slowly when you needed an answer.  
  
You leaned your head against the bathroom wall and stared at the clock. Time wasn't anywhere close to being up and you felt like throwing something. Of course, as an accountant, you knew far better than to engage in such indulgences. The bathrooms in Tony's apartment, much like every other room, were filled with machinery so expensive that just smashing a toothbrush holder would cost thousands of dollars in damages.   
  
 _Tick_  
  
“Ms [Last Name], you have been in here for quite some time, do you require assistance?”  
  
“No thanks, J.A.R.V.I.S,” you said. “Unless you can speed up time.”  
  
“Unfortunately that is beyond my capacities, though I am able to play music,” responded the machine. “According to recent scientific research music alters the way we perceive the passage of time. Would you like me to play something?”  
  
The first time you realised that J.A.R.V.I.S was installed in the bathroom you had screamed like a banshee. You had been about to climb into a steaming hot bath when he quite innocently offered you a choice of mineral oils and you, convinced there was some strange man in there with you, ran screaming from the room in nothing but a towel. Tony had found the whole thing hilarious and ruffled his fingers through your hair as if you had done something incredibly adorable.  
  
“Bad J.A.R.V.I.S,” he had said in between laughs. “Now I have to bathe with [First Name], whatever will I do with you?”  
  
“A terrible punishment indeed, sir.”  
  
Bathe with you he had and, you had to hand it to J.A.R.V.I.S, the mineral oils were lovely.   
  
Having lived in the mansion for a few months and adapted, it no longer seemed so strange to have a robot butler asking after your every need and furnishings that cost more than your car. You were used to asking J.A.R.V.I.S for his opinion on which brand to use for your morning coffee and asking him to check up on Maria and Tony respectively. Both of them crawled out of bed to work on projects in the dead of night, claiming they couldn't sleep. If ever you woke up at 4am and found Tony wasn't snoring next to you, you knew that you would find him in his workspace, working on the Iron Man suit. Usually Maria would be there with him in her Iron Man pyjamas, arguing the many uses of lasers and waving tin foil around to prove her point. You never knew who entered the lab first, only that when you arrived on the scene they would look at one another as if to say 'caught again'.  
  
You didn't tell Maria straight away that you had talked to her Dad in New York though you did tell your Mom the day you went to pick her up. It was another of those awkward conversations you dreaded having with her, for you knew she would end up asking you far more questions than you wanted to answer.  
  
“So, how did it go?” she asked you over coffee, while your Dad took Maria to say goodbye to all of the horses.   
  
“Really well, actually,” you said, taking a sip and trying to look casual. Your mother looked at you witheringly, reminding you that you were completely incapable of fooling her, much like Maria could never trick you.  
  
“Look,” you said, clearing your throat. “There's something I never told you about Maria's Dad...”  
  
“I know,” was her response and you cursed the knowing way she looked at you. Mothers didn't know everything, but there were some things they did pick up instinctively from their children, such as the moments when their offspring only told them half of the truth. Your mother was no exception to the rule, a quality you had always cursed in her whenever you climbed through your bedroom window in the dead of night as a teenager only to find her waiting for you.  
  
“Well, I told you that I met him at work,” you said. “What...I didn't tell you was that he was my boss.”  
  
Your Mom gasped like you guessed she would and you focussed on finishing off your coffee so that you didn't have to look her in the eye.  
  
“Your boss! Are we talking the boss of your department or-”  
  
“No, Mom, the big boss. Maria's Dad is Tony Stark.”  
  
You would always remember the expression on your mother's face as you bundled Maria into the car, that all too familiar look of exhausted mothers everywhere. She might as well have said to you 'it's no wonder I'm going grey' and you flashed her that mischievous smile — the one thing Maria  _had_  inherited from you — that you knew would persuade her to forgive you. It wasn't as if you and Tony were just sleeping together, you had explained, you were planning on becoming a couple again.  
  
 _Tick_  
  
 _Tock_  
  
You sighed.  
  
“Go on then, J.A.R.V.I.S, play me something.”  
  
You shut your eyes as one of Beethoven's compositions filled the bathroom and thought back to the first time Maria met Tony. She knew that you had lived in New York before she was born but she didn't know that you had worked at Stark Enterprises. She certainly didn't know that you had known her idol or that he was her Dad. You hadn't been entirely sure how to tell her, actually.   
  
Tony had called you every day since you left New York, asking how things were and how long it would be until you could move in with him. You decided that, much as you wanted to just go over there, it would be wrong of you to uproot Maria and drop her in the midst of a different life altogether. She needed time to adjust to the idea of having a Dad before you could all live under one roof as a big happy family. Tony was impatient, though, and every day he seemed to have made some new adjustment to his mansion for Maria's benefit. You felt bad for dragging your heels, so you offered to take Maria up to see him on her birthday. Tony made most of the necessary arrangements in the Stark building and your transport there and back. You broke the news to Maria on your fortnightly pizza night.  
  
“So honey,” you said, watching with a smile as she arranged the crusts on her plate. Maria never ate her crusts because one of the teachers at school had told her that doing so would give her curly hair. Unfortunately, Maria's arch-nemesis Polly Privet had blonde ringlets and that bit of trivia made her all the more determined never to eat them. “I've been thinking about your birthday...”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yeah. How would you feel about going to see your Daddy in New York?”  
  
You had her at New York.  
  
“New York?! Can we go and see the Stark building? Please, Mommy, please!” she asked, jumping up in her chair. You feigned a stern expression, while cackling on the inside.  
  
“I'll think about it...if you eat your crusts.”  
  
You didn't know a kid could eat pizza crusts that quickly. One minute they were assembled in parallel lines and the next they were gone.  
  
“Okay, I've thought about it,” you said, once her plate was clear. Maria analysed your face, no doubt scanning for any sign that you might reject her idea.  
  
“You have?”  
  
“Yup,” you couldn't contain your laughter any longer. “Daddy works at Stark Enterprises, so I was going to take you there anyway!”  
  
She realised you had tricked her and spent the next ten or so minutes chasing you round the kitchen, clapping her hands against her head and telling you how mean you were, all while you laughed at the top of your lungs. You swept her up into your arms and laid on the kitchen floor to catch your breath, still doubling over with laughter every so often, much to the disapproval of your daughter.  
  
“Do you think Daddy knows Tony Stark?” Maria asked and you weren't sure how to answer.  
  
“You'll have to ask him that,” you said.  
  
 _Tick_  
  
 _Tock_  
  
Happy picked you up the day of Maria's birthday in one of Tony's limousines. You should have expected it, really and couldn't help but smile as Happy climbed out of the car and gave Maria a funny little bow.  
  
“So you are the birthday girl!” he said, reaching inside his pockets. “I have a present for you.”  
  
“Really?!” said Maria, eyes wide with excitement.  
  
Happy pulled a red beret out of his pocket and placed it on her head, adjusting it so that it angled her face.  
  
“This hat means that you are a VIP today,” he said. “You can drive up front with me if you like.”  
  
Maria turned to you, silently asking if that was okay and you nodded, laughing as she followed Happy into the passenger side front seat and fastened her seatbelt. You couldn't help but notice that it all came to her so naturally, like a sixth sense. Anyone who didn't know her might have believed she had spent her entire life getting in and out of limousines.  
  
You learned the true reason for Happy's gift when you arrived at the Stark building. Every member of staff had obviously been told to look out for the little girl in the red beret and they bowed and said 'happy birthday, Maria' whenever they passed her, some handing her gifts, others ushering her over to show her what they were working on. At first it surprised her, but you supposed she came to the conclusion that she was a VIP and VIPs are meant to get that sort of treatment.   
  
“Will I get to meet Tony Stark today?” Maria asked, testing the waters of her new power and Happy laughed in such a knowing way that you realised there was only one possible thing that could come next.  
  
It turned out that your suspicions were completely on the ball. Happy called for your guide to come and give you the official tour and Maria blanched when Tony stepped through the door and walked over. Maria was always a confident child — usually overconfident — but the second her hero walked over to her she took your hand and squeezed it tightly.  
  
“You must be Maria,” said Tony, kneeling down so that they were approximately the same height. Maria looked at him and then looked at you as if to ask if it was all really happening. She never noticed that Tony did the same thing, or that his eyes softened when he took in her dark hair and eyes.  
  
“Can I wear your sunglasses?” Maria asked, her brief moment of shyness forgotten. Tony laughed and took them off immediately, passing them to her. They were designer sunglasses, undoubtedly expensive, and about three times too big for Maria's face but Tony seemed to approve.  
  
“They look better on you,” he said. “Why don't you keep them?”  
  
Tony and Maria got on like a house on fire from the moment they met, co-conspirators from that point onwards. It was almost as if they had known one another from the very beginning and seeing them debate which paint scheme for the Iron Man suit was better over lunch brought a smile to your face.   
  
 _Tick_  
  
 _Tock_  
  
It wasn't until she had had a bath and was tucked up in bed that Maria asked the question you had been waiting for ever since you entered the Stark tower.  
  
“Do you think Daddy will be sad that we never got to see him?” she asked as you rearranged her teddies.  
  
“Daddy was with us the whole time, sweetie,” you said, smiling innocently.  
  
It took Maria a while to process your words and, when she did, you almost thought she didn't believe you. She scrutinised your face for quite some time, finally breaking into giggles.  
  
“Mommy, you're silly,” she said. “Tony was the only one with us and he's not my Daddy.”  
  
You probably should have thought twice about telling her otherwise right before bedtime. After learning the truth all of the fatigue she had gained from walking round the Stark building all day evaporated and she wanted to know everything. You were still answering her questions in the early hours of the morning, though by that point they were mostly ones that could be answered with a single 'yes' or 'no'.  
  
“Does Daddy like pastrami, Mommy?”  
  
“Uhhhh....I'm not sure, why?”  
  
“Because you don't like pastrami but I do.”  
  
“You'll have to ask him that.”  
  
You had sold most of your good dresses and traded your sports car for a cheaper model but there were still a couple of pieces of evidence around the house that you had been involved with Tony once. You had a small lock-box of photographs in the bottom left hand corner of your wardrobe that Maria had never been allowed to touch because the photographs inside it were of you and Tony in the good days. The day Maria learned the truth you let her look at the pictures for the first time, talking her through the stories of each picture and pointing out the faces of people she had seen around the Stark building. Her favourite picture, and the one you allowed her to keep, was one of you and Tony at a party a matter of months before you got pregnant. You hadn't known the photo was being taken so it was completely candid, with Tony's arm around you and you laughing at something he had just said.   
  
 _Tick_  
  
Tony's daily phone call soon became twice as long; he spent half of it talking with you about what had happened that day and the other talking to Maria about her weapon designs. She was very pleased to learn that he  _did_  like pastrami, though he was slightly more partial to the salmon version, which naturally she was obsessed with trying.   
  
 _Tock_  
  
They took to one another like ducks to water and Maria's true homecoming was the day the two of you moved into Tony's apartment. Within a matter of months it was as if you had lived there all along; the silent agreement that Pepper and Happy would babysit on Thursday nights so that you and Tony could go on dates; the addition of a fingerprint lock on the fridge and fresh fruit and vegetables inside.   
  
 _Tick_  
  
Time was almost up and you glanced at the white stick in your hands impatiently. You weren't surprised about that little turn of events in the slightest; if anything you were a little curious about how it had taken so long to come about. You and Tony had hardly been careful in your bedroom exploits, with Tony often rolling over in the middle of the night wanting to make love. It was something of a turn on for him that you had to be quiet to avoid waking Maria and you had honestly started to wonder if your nail marks on his back were going to be a permanent fixture in your relationship.   
  
If your suspicions were correct then you would almost certainly get to be on top for the next year or so, something that you probably would have been excited about if you weren't so nervous. You had never had 'the talk' with Tony about where your relationship was going or if he wanted to have more kids eventually. You had meant to broach the subject when you first realised you were late, setting the scene perfectly. You waited for Maria to go to bed before pouring yourself a glass of water and heading down to Tony's workstation, intending to sternly announce that it was soon going to be his bedtime too. It wasn't, of course. Tony didn't have a scheduled bedtime. He mostly just crawled into bed when he was bored.  
  
That all fell through, of course, when you arrived at Tony's office space and found Phil Coulson standing there. You knew very little about SHIELD or its agents, but you knew you liked Coulson. There was something comfortingly  _normal_  about him; when you learned the truth about Natalie, or rather Natasha, you hadn't known who to trust but Coulson had made you feel so much better about the whole situation.  
  
As you gave him one last kiss and watched him walk through the door you half wanted to shout after him that you were pretty sure you were pregnant and forbid him from leaving you. You knew better than that though and instead you waved.  
  
“Come back, okay?” you said, hoping and praying that whatever it was SHIELD had called him for wasn't serious. [1]  
  
 _Tock_  
  
You glanced up at the clock. Finally time was up and you'd have the answer you had been waiting for. You examined the pregnancy test, taking in the second pink line to appear, confirming every suspicion you had had so far.  
  
“J.A.R.V.I.S, turn off the music,” you said, rising to your feet and analysing the stick in better light.  
  
“Of course, Ms [Last Name],” he said and the room fell silent once again.  
  
Happy and Maria were in the middle of having a race with remote controlled cars in the sitting room and they were too preoccupied to notice you enter. You were somewhat glad about that. Tony had called a few hours earlier to relocate you to one of his lesser known apartments on the outskirts of New York, never telling you the reason why, only that something big was about to happen. You begged him to tell you, begged and pleaded and threatened but all to no avail. You were tempted to tell him then as well but you held back. Just like before, when Obadiah was still around, you didn't know who might be listening in on the conversation, willing use your circumstances to their benefit.   
  
You hadn't had the 'talk' with Maria either, about where babies came from. If Tony was as optimistic about the baby in your belly as he had been Maria then you knew it was only a matter of time before the question came up. You doubted she had noticed there was something different about you, that you had been throwing up a lot and checking the calendar more than usual. She hadn't even noticed that you had been evacuated thanks to Happy's masterful interventions. He was truly an expert at keeping Maria (and, to a lesser degree Tony's) attention away from the main issue at hand, thereby keeping the peace. He had produced the remote controlled cars right when the news broke of some sort of battle in Manhattan.  
  
“Mommy,” called Maria when she saw you. “I beat Happy again!”  
  
“Really?” you said. “I'm starting to think Happy's letting you win.”  
  
Maria frowned at Happy as if to question him and he immediately shook his head over and over.  
  
“I would never do that, Miss Maria, you're just too talented for little old me,” he said, setting down his controls and walking into the kitchen for a glass of lemonade. He offered you one and you accepted, all while Maria examined both cars to ensure he really hadn't let her win. Like Tony before her, she just couldn't stand it when people handed things to her.  
  
You went into the kitchen too, leaving the door open so that you could still see Maria. The lemonade was cool and sweet and you savoured the refreshment. Happy and Pepper had picked up on the fact that there was something wrong with you and, in Pepper's absence, Happy fetched the pregnancy tester for you and waited on the result with bated breath.  
  
“Well?” he asked, refilling his own cup.  
  
“It's positive,” you said, staring at the floor tiles and tracing your toes along the pattern. They were black slate tiles, flown in from overseas to match Tony's main apartment and the sight of them made you shudder. The quality of the news broadcast had been much obscured by hundreds of New Yorkers running in the opposite direction but you had been able to see that whatever was attacking the buildings wasn't human and the tiles on the kitchen floor looked just like the scales on their backs.  
  
“You look thrilled about it,” said Happy, the sarcasm clear. You couldn't help but smirk.  
  
“I'll be thrilled when Tony's back and all of this is over,” you said.  
  
As if in response your phone began to beep. Your ringtone was a recording of Maria attempting to sing through the Tom Lehrer song about the elements, with Tony in the background providing a bassline and prompting her whenever she got stuck on a particular word. It always made you smile and this time was no exception to the rule, since the caller was listed as 'Tony'.  
  
“Tony?!” you answered, a little higher in pitch than you had hoped for. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Hey, [First Name],” he said. You could hear laughter in the background. “Me and the guys are going for shawarma, why don't you and the Poindexter come along?”  
  
Poindexter was his nickname for Maria, one he had affectionately given to her after she told him what, in her opinion, was the best way to reconfigure a nuclear weapon. She made no secret of the fact that she considered herself far more intelligent than he was and he made no secret of the fact that in a few years she probably would be.  
  
“Shawarma?” you repeated, wondering if it was code.   
  
“Yeah, I crashed into a joint not so long ago and I realised I'd never tried it. It's like meat on a spit.”[2]  
  
It wasn't code.  
  
“Man of Iron!” yelled a voice you did not recognise. “You are missing the feast!”  
  
“I'll be right there, Point Break!” he called back, before lowering his voice to talk to you. “Come on, [First Name], all the cool kids are here. We have Captain America, the Hulk, two master assassins, Thor-”  
  
Thor...as in God of Thunder?  
  
“Honey, did you hit your head on the way down?” you asked as somebody raised a toast in the background to the Avengers Initiative and Agent Coulson, followed by the sound of glasses clinking. Tony was too busy telling you that he was forwarding the address to J.A.R.V.I.S and hanging up to answer. You stared at your phone for a few seconds afterwards, absorbing everything he had said and trying to make sense of it all.  
  
“Was that Tony?” asked Happy, over the sound of Maria walking into the room, toy car still in hand. Moth to a flame, you thought, laughing to yourself.  
  
“Was that Daddy?” she asked.  
  
“Yes,” you said. “He's sending an address to J.A.R.V.I.S. He wants us to go for  _Shawarma_.”[3]  
  
You put extra emphasis on the foreign word, wondering if maybe it was a codeword for Happy. It wasn't. Happy looked just as bewildered as you did. Only Maria seemed to have a clue what it was and you got the impression that she was just pretending to know because Tony was the one who suggested it.  
  
“Let's go for Shawarma, Mommy,” she said, taking your hand. “Let's goooooo!”  
  
The address Tony had forwarded to J.A.R.V.I.S belonged to a cheap little place on one of the back streets of New York. It took Happy a while to find it and even then he drove past it twice. Whenever Tony took you on dates it was usually to high class restaurants where neither of you could pronounce the name of the house red — a complete contrast to the shawarma place, which you doubted had a wine menu at all. Occasionally, when the two of you had been to press conferences or other events you would travel to greasy burger places, though only ever at drive-throughs. Tony found great amusement in ordering relatively ordinary, cheap food and then taking in the expression of amazement on the member of staff's face as you pulled in to pick up your food in a convertible. You preferred those times to the restaurants, where paparazzi knew your faces and noted down everything you ordered, ready and willing to misinterpret everything if it made them a quick buck. In the car with Tony you could lean back and relax, sing along to whatever song was on the radio and lick ketchup from your fingers as if napkins had never been invented.  
  
The lighting in the shawarma place was not very good and you squinted to try and make out the faces of the customers inside. Maria was miles ahead of you, though, and ran towards a table at the back.  
  
“Daddy!” she called, lifting her arms into the air and laughing when Tony rose to his feet.  
  
“Poindexter!” he greeted, lifting her into his arms and sitting back down in his chair. “Where's your Mom?”  
  
To say he looked battered and bruised was an understatement; he looked terrible. You knew he wasn't completely impervious to damage when he was in the Iron Man suit and you dreaded to think what shape the suit was in. The smell of cooking meat made you feel more than just a little bit ill but still you approached the table, taking in the faces of everyone there for the first time.   
  
The majority of the others were strangers; you only recognised Natasha, who immediately flashed you a small smile by way of greeting. You hadn't parted on the best terms, considering that when you met her you had presumed two incorrect things: one, that she was called Natalie and worked solely for Stark Enterprises and two, that she had been placed there as eye candy for Tony. In truth she was a secret SHIELD agent, known around the world by her codename 'Black Widow', put there deliberately as an attempt to recruit Tony. You trusted her as far as you could throw her but you didn't feel the need to cause friction by mentioning that.  
  
“Guys,” said Tony. “That over there is [First Name] and this is Maria. Maria, [First Name], meet Bruce, Steve, Thor, Natasha and Clint.”  
  
“You're Bruce Banner?!” Maria immediately said, turning to the guy in a shabby suit that was seated next to Tony, all while the one he'd referred to as Steve offered you his chair. Bruce, as Tony had called him, seemed surprised that Maria knew his name and nodded slowly.  
  
“I am,” he said, in a tone that implied he wasn't entirely sure where the conversation was going.  
  
“If I poke you, will you turn green?” Maria asked, prompting laughter from all round the table, despite the fact that she was completely serious.  
  
“Why don't you try it and see?” was Bruce's response and everyone fell silent as she reached out a finger and tapped it against him, immediately flinching into Tony as Bruce gave out a mock roar and pretended to be in the middle of transforming. It was quite comical to behold and the second Maria realised that he was only pretending her first instinct was to laugh.[4]  
  
“Her countenance is much like that of yours, Man of Iron,” commented Thor and you regarded him with a faint degree of curiosity. He was dressed in strange clothing: armour and a velvety red cape that gave him an almost regal air. There was a large hammer next to his chair engraved with what appeared to be ancient runic symbols. Maria was looking at him too, her momentary fascination with Bruce forgotten.  
  
“You talk funny,” she said, giggling and Thor puffed up his shoulders proudly.  
  
“Tis the tradition in my home of Asgard,” he said. “Every man and woman of quality speaks in such a manner. Where I am from the way you speak would be regarded as quite strange, too, small Midgardian.”  
  
Maria climbed off Tony's lap and approached Thor, scrutinising every detail of him, from the engravings on his armour to the swirling patterns embroidered into his cape. Finally, as if coming to a conclusion, she nodded.  
  
“Do you know how to play horsey?” she asked, as if it was a matter of global importance.  
  
Thor thought for a moment, as if considering whether or not it actually was.  
  
“I fear I do not, though do not worry, small Midgardian,” he said. “We Asgardians have a long and esteemed tradition of learning that which we do not already understand. If you wish it of me, I shall learn.” [5]  
  
Tony stood up to order food as Thor took in Maria's explanation of how to play horsey. You hadn't been able to fully appreciate how tall he actually was while he sat down at the table earlier. The man was enormous and if he stood up straight with Maria on his shoulders then there was a chance she would bang her head on the light fittings.  
  
“You having a beer?” Tony asked, as you urged Thor to lean over and give her a piggy back of sorts, giving Maria the chance to be high up and Thor to see where he was going without the chance of anyone getting hurt.  
  
“Uhhh, I'll have lemonade,” you said, thinking back to the refreshment of the glass you had had in the apartment earlier. Tony pulled a face as if to say 'honeyyyy, you're showing me up in front of the guys' and Maria called over from her position on Thor's back that she'd have beer.  
  
“You can have beer when you're twenty one hundred,” Tony retorted, prompting Maria to pout and Thor to argue that drinking mead was considered a high honour in Asgard at any age.  
  
“Explains a lot,” said Tony, smiling as he ordered your lemonade.  
  
Steve had borrowed a chair from one of the other tables and hadn't said very much to you. You got the impression that he was a little shy and wasn't entirely sure what to say, though when Tony was at the bar and out of earshot you realised it was something else entirely.  
  
“I never imagined Tony as the fatherly type,” he mused aloud and you laughed at the idea.  
  
“It wasn't a matter of wanting her,” you said. “It was how he got her.”  
  
Steve went a shade of bright red at that and you looked at him in confusion, wondering if you had said something insulting. Clint decided to put you out of your misery.  
  
“Steve's from the forties,” he said. “Little old fashioned.”  
  
“Oh,” you said, thinking about how that made him and your Dad about the same age. That explained why he hadn't talked to you before, since you were technically someone else's woman and he was probably still of the mind that men and women couldn't have a conversation without being interested in romance [6]. Your father had had 'the talk' with you whenever you mentioned doing a class project with a boy in your class or going to the cinema with a mixed gender group, that stern talk about gender politics and how things were in the good old days when nobody talked about anything. “I'm sorry, I would never have guessed.”  
  
Steve smiled.  
  
“I look good for my age, don't I?”  
  
You couldn't help but laugh at that, the brief moment of awkwardness broken.   
  
Tony returned with your lemonade a couple of minutes later and you took his hand under the table while Maria laughed in the background at Thor's brilliantly accurate impression of a horse. You wanted to tell him everything, ask him everything, understand everything that had taken place over the last few days. Instead you settled for getting to know the new friends who would never have entered your life if the world had not been in danger.  
  
~~EPILOGUE~~  
  
The ride home from the shawarma place was long and dark. Night had fallen a long time beforehand and your eyelids drooped every so often, reminding you that it had been so long since you were last in bed.   
  
After finishing her game of horsey Maria had eaten her shawarma with Clint and Natasha, who promised to teach her archery and boxing among other things. Tony was a little jealous that her affections had moved onto other superheroes besides Iron Man, though you knew it was only going to be temporary. She would always love Iron Man the best. The whole experience of meeting new people had left her exhausted and the second you fastened her seatbelt she curled up and fell asleep, twitching every so often and murmuring things about saving the world in a dreamlike voice.  
  
Tony had fallen asleep not so long afterwards, leaning his head on your shoulder and telling you about just some of the things he had been up to in his absence.  
  
“You'll have to join us next time,” he had said, drifting off to sleep.  
  
“I don't think I'll be able to,” you had replied, stroking your fingers through his hair and taking in the sight of his long eyelashes.  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“I'm pregnant.”  
  
“Oh. Okay.”  
  
And just like that he had fallen asleep, with his warm breath on your shoulder and a hand on your stomach.  
  
Maria thought you had the answers to everything. You didn't. You couldn't tell her what was waiting for you at the end of the proverbial road or what would happen on the way there, but you did know that right then in the car with the radio off everything was okay. If you had to look back later on at a point in your life when everything was in order and as it should be then you would look no further than that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Fucking. LOL.  
> [2] I'm British and kebabs (which are pretty similar to shawarma) are really common over here so I had a moment where I felt like a food connoisseur or something when I looked up what shawarma was in more detail.  
> [3] Slightly amusing factoid well I think it's funny anyway. My spell checker had a field day telling me shawarma wasn't a real word and kept trying to change it to 'chairwoman'. That made for some delightfully awkward proofreading sessions where I would skim over something like 'Let's go and eat chairwoman' and end up really confused for the rest of the paragraph.  
> [4] Headcanon #1 — Bruce loves kids. He'd totally have a houseful if it wasn't for the 'other guy'.  
> [5] Headcanon #2 — They probably do have horsey in Asgard but not in the palace as it is unseemly of princes. Can you honestly imagine Odin as the type to play?  
> [6] I'm thinking here of the Peggy/Howard conversation and how Steve completely took it out of context, even though I'm well aware that Reader doesn't know about that. I imagine that Steve's idea of flirting is waay different to Tony's and he wouldn't want to give the impression that he was flirting with Tony's girlfriend, since that wouldn't be the honourable thing to do and Steve's all about the honour.


End file.
